Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

Tanzania (Detained British Subject)

Mr. Evelyn King: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what contact he has had with the Government of Tanzania following the sentencing of a British journalist, Percy Cleaver, to three years in prison after a secret trial in Dar-es-Salaam ; and to what extent Mr. Cleaver has had access to the British consul.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Lord Balniel): The high commission at Dar-es-Salaam has been in contact at official level with the Government of Tanzania. Mr. Cleaver was visited 13 times by high commission staff during the period between his arrest in June 1972 and the opening of his trial in July 1973. I regret that since then, despite repeated requests, no visits have been allowed although one is promised for 11th December.

Mr. King: Does my right hon. Friend not recognise that the last part of his reply constitutes an international outrage? Is he aware that any weakness on the part of the Foreign Office only provokes similar incidents? Is he further aware of my constituent, Mr. Coles, this time in Zambia, who has had three ribs broken and a lung punctured, and who has been jumped on by thugs in the Zambian Army for no offence whatever, other than that of holding a British passport? Will the British Foreign Office demand an apology and compensation, and make the strongest possible representations about such incidents, which occur all too frequently?

Lord Balniel: My hon. Friend's Question referred to Mr. Cleaver, in Tanzania. His supplementary point relates to Mr. Coles, in Zambia. I would point out, with respect to Mr. Cleaver, that we expect he will receive a visit from a member of the high commission on 11th December, in a fortnight's time. On the subject of Mr. Coles, it is clear that he was badly beaten. We have expressed our concern to the Zambians and asked for an explanation. The high commissioner has discussed the case with the Zambian Prime Minister.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Although there does not seem to be much indignation from the Labour benches about the treatment of British subjects, may we be assured that Her Majesty's Government are at least as zealous on behalf of these individuals as they rightly were in the case of Mr. Niesewand?

Lord Balniel: I can assure my hon. Friend that the fact that we have raised the matter with the Zambian Prime Minister is an indication that we do regard it as serious.

Mr. William Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that hon. Members on the Labour benches take great exception to the remarks of the hon. Member for Chig-well (Mr. Biggs-Davison), since there are things going on in Rhodesia just as reprehensible as events in Zambia or Tanzania? Is he further aware that we object to all such events, without exception?

Mr. King: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Diplomatic Immunity

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the total number of persons resident in the United Kingdom to whom diplomatic immunity is extended.

Lord Balniel: A total of 2,065 officials in the United Kingdom, with their families, are entitled to full diplomatic immunity. A further 2,832 are entitled to a more restricted immunity.

Mr. Tebbit: Is the Minister aware that this great number of people who are


entitled to immunity gives rise to considerable disquiet when immunity is abused in such matters as traffic offences and even more so in relation to criminal offences? Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he will expedite the inquiries he is making into the alleged assault upon my constituent, Mr. Levy, by the third secretary of an embassy in London, in which alleged assault Mr. Levy was seriously injured?

Lord Balniel: The size of the diplomatic missions in London compares broadly with the total numbers of staff in British embassies and diplomatic missions overseas, who have the same immunities. On the specific point that my hon. Friend has raised, I have asked the Home Office to let me have urgently the police report of this incident. As soon as I have been able to look at this I shall be able to consider whether we should take the matter up with the South African Ambassador.

Mr. George Cunningham: Will the Minister make clear to all diplomatic missions in London that if diplomatic immunity is constantly abused the Government will have to resort to declaring people personœ non grata?

Lord Balniel: All the diplomatic missions should be aware that it is their duty to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state.

Mr. Goodhart: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that if petrol rationing has to be introduced here it will apply to embassy cars and the cars belonging to foreign diplomats?

Lord Balniel: My hon. Friend will appreciate that that is a hypothetical question. We shall consider that matter if and when it arises.

Syria (Prisoners of War)

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has raised with the Syrian authorities their refusal to comply with the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War; and, if so, with what results.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Sir Alec Douglas-Home): We have been in touch with the Syrian authorities on a number

of occasions. They continue to insist on certain steps being taken by Israel in connection with the Third and Fourth Conventions before they will hand over lists. We have asked the Israelis to clarify their attitude to the Fourth Convention.

Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have seen some sad and sickening photographs of young Israeli prisoners, gagged, bound, shot and dumped in the rocks by the Syrians in the Golan? Does he appreciate the anguish felt by the parents of those still missing? Will he renew his welcome efforts to get the Syrians to comply with their obligations under the Geneva convention in the hope, at least, that this may lead to a better atmosphere for peace?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, Sir. I share the hon. Gentleman's anxieties and the anguish of those who have had relatives put in this very dangerous and horrible position. There ought to be no question of reciprocity in this matter. Every country should act in accordance with the convention.

Mr. Fidler: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the resumption, not so long ago, of diplomatic relations between this country and Syria? Will he say whether the value and the result of those diplomatic relations can be estimated as being high if Syria refuses to accept humanitarian standards?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Diplomatic relations have only recently been restored, and I hope that they will give us an influence that we did not have previously.

EEC Energy Policy

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Dutch Government about EEC policy on energy supplies, following restrictions on oil imported into Rotterdam.

Mr. Goodhart: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Dutch Government about EEC policy on energy supplies.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Davies): At the Council of Ministers on 5th and 6th November, attended by my right hon. Friend


and myself, the energy situation was discussed with our Netherlands and other Community colleagues. It was agreed to keep matters under review and to work collectively and individually for a solution of the Middle East problem. The declaration on the Middle East was a first contribution to that end. Further consultations were held in Copenhagen on 20th November on this and other matters.

Mr. Dalyell: What is the position of the Royal Dutch Shell Company in relation to both the British and Dutch Governments in this matter?

Mr. Davies: The Royal Dutch Company is incorporated in the Netherlands and is, therefore, under the statutes of that country.

Mr. Goodhart: What is the point of discussing European energy co-operation or, indeed European economic co-operation if we are prepared to help destroy the Dutch oil industry on the instructions of our Arab oil suppliers?

Mr. Davies: If the case were as my hon. Friend has postulated, we should indeed be faced with great problems. The truth is that we have had profound and deep discussions with all our Community partners, including the Netherlands, and have reached a conclusion as to our common line of action, which we are now pursuing. It would be unwise to seek to go beyond that common line of action, agreed with all our partners.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: The right hon. Gentleman has said that we shall approach this problem collectively and individually. What does he mean by "individually"? Shall we approach the problem individually and forget what the right hon. Gentleman meant by saying "collectively"?

Mr. Davies: No. In making this response I simply mean that there is a field of work in which collective action is useful. There is also one in which individual action is useful. What we are concerned with doing, obviously, is maximising oil supplies to the Community.

Mr. Marten: Does my right hon. Friend recall a leader in The Times earlier this month which said that if we

do not supply oil to Holland we shall be turning our backs upon Europe? Are we supplying oil to Holland, or are we turning our backs on Europe,—or is there a division of opinion over the Common Market, at last, between The Times and the Government?

Mr. Davies: I can say with assurance that we are not turning our backs on either the Common Market or the Netherlands. Concerning The Times, the leader writer must defend himself ; I must not do that.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Is Shell ordering the diversion of supplies, directly or indirectly? The right hon. Gentleman has referred to an agreement among the members of the EEC on a common line of action. Are we to understand that the Dutch Government are in full accord with that decision by the EEC members?

Mr. Davies: On the latter point, yes, the Dutch Government are in full accord. At the meeting on 20th November to which I have referred, they repeated their accord with the common line of action proposed. Concerning the Shell Company—and, indeed, any other oil company—there is no question of diversion. It has its own decisions to make about the routing of the supplies to which it has access in the various producing areas. That is the position. There is no question of diversion in so far as it makes decisions in relation to its own routing schedules.

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on the European Commission's latest proposals for a European energy policy.

Mr. John Davies: The latest proposals were made by the Commission in August. They were mainly about oil and have since been under discussion by officials of member States. Further detailed proposals for a European energy policy are awaited.

Mr. Rost: Will Britain obey the Arab directive to apply oil sanctions against Holland and the Rotterdam refineries? If so, is it not a waste of time to talk about a European energy policy? Surely it is meaningless without solidarity and mutual aid. Does the Government's


policy of even-handedness not also apply to Europe?

Mr. Davies: No, I think my hon. Friend has got it wrong. The Arab action has been in relation to supplies emanating from their countries to Holland. It has, therefore, so far as I am aware, not in any way at this stage sought to impose a ban on movements between European Community countries. Indeed, there are provisions within the treaties which would at this present stage, except in the case of an emergency, make that action not correct within the framework of the Community.

Mr. Richard: May we take it that in the discussions which have been taking place in the last few days between representatives of Saudi Arabia and the oil-producing countries and the British and French Governments, no demand has been made by the oil-producing countries that other European countries should cut down their exports to Holland?

Mr. Davies: No. So far as the missions which have reached this country are concerned, they have acted entirely in accordance with their own statements concerning their will to give certain preferences of supply to certain European countries. So far as I am aware, there has been no question of endeavouring to impose limitations of movement between Community countries.

Middle East

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a further statement on developments in the Middle East as they affect United Kingdom interests and policies.

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the present position in the Middle East following the Arabi-Israeli conflict as it affects United Kingdom interests and policies.

Mr. Haselhurst: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about steps taken by Her Majesty's Government to promote a peace settlement in the Middle East.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a further statement about the Middle East, so far as United Kingdom interests are involved.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Egyptian and Israeli military representatives have agreed on the implementation of much of the agreement of 11th November and are now discussing the disengagement of the armies. We hope that a conference to negotiate a permanent settlement will open soon. I am in close touch with the other Governments concerned about the preparations for this conference.

Mr. Molloy: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the basis for a real peace settlement in the Middle East, in the interests of Britain, Israel, and the Palestinian Arabs, is still the implementation of Resolution 242, which must be infinitely preferred to killing and bloodshed? Will he do all within his power to see that there is now some practical implementation of the proposals of that resolution?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes, Sir. Within the framework of Resolution 242 it ought to be possible to work out a settlement which combines the two essential things—withdrawal, and Israeli security.

Mr. Haselhurst: Has my right hon. Friend received any assurance that the peace conference to resolve all the issues will take place within a measurable time? Has he put forward any clearer views on behalf of Her Majesty's Government as to the shape of the final settlement?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: One does not want to lay down what I could call a blueprint for a settlement, because clearly a final settlement must be agreed, essentially, between the Israelis and their Arab neighbours. But we have expressed opinions as to the kind of settlement which we think should be possible. I hope that the conference will take place quite soon.

Mr. Davis: Will the right hon. Gentleman take this opportunity of spelling


out, consequent upon his recent statement on the Middle East, how his construction of Resolution 242 differs from that of the Egyptian Government?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I do not need to spell out the differences between our point of view and that of any other Government. These are matters for reconciliation at a peace conference. No one would like to lay down the law now.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: What is my right hon. Friend's information about the rearming of Arab States by the Soviet bloc? In the light of that, what is Her Majesty's Government's policy about any future resumption of arms supply from this country?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Part of a final settlement must be an agreement as to how arms should be supplied in the area, and in what quantities ; in other words, a rationing system. It is too early, therefore, to say whether we can resume the supply of arms to either side.

Mr. Callaghan: Is it the case that the peace conference is due to start on 18th December? Will the Foreign Secretary be there? If not, how will he represent United Kingdom interests and policies?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: As I have said to the House previously, the essential thing is to get the conference started. It must start with the combatants—Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Israel. After the Moscow agreement, the Americans and the Soviet Union will, I have no doubt, be in close attendance.

Mr. Richard: Not us?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: No, not at the start. But the House can fairly assume that there will be many difficulties. It is a long road. It is then that the permanent members of the Security Council will be able to help, because the whole thing must be under the umbrella of the Security Council.

Mr. Boscawen: Will my right hon. Friend seek to ensure that the Security Council extends the mandate for the peace-keeping force for longer than six months, because the period of six months greatly reduces the effectiveness of that force and gives the indication that it may be withdrawn at too early a date?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I should have thought that if it was to give confidence to anyone, the force would have to be there for many years, in order that confidence may grow. I should have thought that another condition must be that it should not be withdrawn at the request of any one of the combatants.

Mr. Faulds: How can there be any meaningful negotiations towards a peace settlement in the Middle East on 18th December or any other date until the international community has prevailed upon Israel to withdraw from the territories she won after the cease-fire?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The withdrawal and the extent of the withdrawal must be part of the subject matter for the peace conference.

Mr. Dykes: Will not my right hon. Friend say a little more in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison)? Is it not alarming that the resupply of weapons to the Arabs is now such that they are in the position in which they were before the recent outbreak of hostilities? Does this not make the achievement of a real peace conference that much more difficult?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I should think that many of the weapons lost by the Israelis and the Arabs have been replaced.

European Armed Force Levels

Mr. Dempsey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the results to date of the conference taking place to bring about a reduction in armed forces in Europe.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Julian Amery): The negotiations which began in Vienna on 30th October on the mutual reduction of armed forces and armaments and associated measures in Central Europe are still at a very early stage. Representatives of the countries participating on both sides have made opening statements setting out their general approach to the negotiations. They are now developing their ideas in more detail.

Mr. Dempsey: Is there any validity in the growing speculation in Britain that, in the event of these negotiations


failing, the Government intend to introduce military conscription? In other words, will the right hon. Gentleman say that the existing defence forces, recruited on a voluntary basis, are adequate to honour our foreign policy commitments?

Mr. Amery: It is early days to talk about the negotiations failing. Although it may be a sign that I am out of touch, the hon. Gentleman's comment is the first I have heard of any speculation about the reintroduction of conscription.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will my right hon. Friend be very careful in the progress which is made at these talks? At a time when the Iron Curtain countries, particularly Russia, are increasing the level of their armed forces, would not the so-called policy of the Opposition of decreasing the Defence Estimates by £1,000 million be absolutely disastrous for this country and for the whole of Western European defence?

Mr. Amery: I think that all hon. Members know in their hearts—and I am sure that the responsible leaders of the Opposition know—that to cut defence spending by £1,000 million would be totally irresponsible.

Mr. Richard: The right hon. Gentleman will doubtless have seen the remarks made—I think last week—by the French representatives at Western European Union, particularly about the possibility of an Anglo-French nuclear force which excluded the Americans and was outside the North Atlantic Treaty. Will the Government give a specific undertaking that in no circumstances will they consider the establishment of an Anglo-French nuclear force outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation?

Mr. Amery: The hon. and learned Gentleman has asked an entirely new question which has nothing to do with the Question on the Order Paper. If he will table a Question I shall do my best to answer it.

Hong Kong

Mr. Sillars: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will appoint a commission to examine the social and economic reasons which prevent the Government

applying certain ILO conventions to Hong Kong.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will establish a working party to inquire into the rates of pay earned by workers in Hong Kong.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Anthony Royle): No, Sir.

Mr. Sillars: Is it not something of a scandal that in one of the major economies of the Far East a large number of ILO conventions are not applied, or are not applied fully, although they would be of enormous benefit to working people in Hong Kong? Does not this matter fall for urgent consideration and investigation by the Government, or is it simply a case that the Government know their responsibility and just will not exercise it?

Mr. Royle: No ; I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is being very fair. Twenty-eight declarations of application have been made, 19 of which are of full application, and improved declarations are under consideration in respect of five more conventions. There is full employment in Hong Kong. Many workers receive additional benefits, such as free medical attention, subsidised meals, good attendance bonuses and subsidised transport to and from work. Some employers supply their workers with free or subsidised accommodation.

Mr. Michael Shaw: Is my hon. Friend aware that those of us who have been out to Hong Kong in recent times realise the tremendous amount of progress that has been made in the face of very great difficulties, in all these respects?

Mr. Royle: Yes, I think that my hon. Friend is correct. There have been great difficulties. The speech made by the Governor last month underlined the imaginative programme which he has in mind for the people of Hong Kong.

Mr. Morris: Is the Under-Secretary aware that, with 15 per cent. of the work force receiving less than 75p a day, Hong Kong is increasingly regarded as Britain's sweat shop colony? Does the Under-Secretary understand the real anxiety


that this creates amongst Lancashire's textile workers, who are obliged to compete with textiles produced in such conditions?

Mr. Royle: I have the highest regard for the hon. Gentleman, but I recommend that before he comes to the House again he does his homework. Between March 1964 and March 1973 the nominal wage index in Hong Kong rose to 239 and the real wage index by 159 per cent. Meaningful comparisons must be based on the local cost of living. Wages today in Hong Kong are the highest of any country in the Far East outside Japan.

Mr. James Johnson: I support all that has been said about social and economic conditions by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars). May I ask the Minister why he finds it impossible to have a commission of inquiry into political affairs and also affairs of what might be termed law and order—the matter of the police and corruption over the past 20 years? Why does the Under-Secretary stubbornly turn his mind against this? He must be as aware as I am of the feeling inside the colony itself.

Mr. Royle: This question is going rather wider than the original Questions on the Order Paper, but I should like to help the hon. Gentleman. On the problem of corruption in Hong Kong, which is what I think the hon. Gentleman is implying, he will know that the setting up of an independent anti-corruption commission in Hong Kong has now taken place. The Government fully support this and the strong measures which the governor is taking to deal with the admitted problem of corruption.

Sri Lanka (British Firms)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice his Department gives to British firms in Sri Lanka about the level of wages for their employees in that country.

Lord Balniel: None, Sir.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that millions of viewers were shocked by a recent "World in Action" film showing tea workers and their families diseased and dying through literally

starvation wages of £1 a week paid by British firms? Will the Minister set up an inquiry into this, similar to the one dealing with wages in South Africa?

Lord Balniel: I am aware that many people were concerned about that television programme. Equally, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that Sri Lanka is a developing country, struggling with an extremely bad economic situation, and conditions compare unfavourably with conditions that would be acceptable in this country. British firms in Sri Lanka pay the rates laid down by the Sri Lanka Government. Tea companies in Sri Lanka are barely profitable. Indeed, many are losing money.

Miss Joan Hall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his description of Sri Lanka being in a difficult situation is hardly apt to describe a situation in which there is rationing worse than there was during the war? One of the problems for those British companies which are left there is as to their belief in the future, because there has been so much nationalisation there and they do not want to invest because they feel they might be nationalised tomorrow by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Lord Balniel: The main worry does not arise from the political prospects, although no doubt they are very relevant. The main worry is that the price of tea as a commodity has not risen and many of these countries are in a very difficult economic situation.

Namibia

Mr. Robert Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United Nations over the flogging of civilians in Namibia.

Mr. Kinnock: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the United Nations over the flogging of civilians by South African police in Namibia.

Lord Balniel: None, Sir. But I share the hon. Members' concern. We regard this as the primary responsibility of the South African Government, whom we have urged to investigate and to end practices of this kind.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that even in South Africa there is widespread outrage at the barbarism practised in Namibia? Does this not show that the South African Government's claim to operate the mandate in the spirit which was intended is an absolute farce? Will the Government now accept the International Court of Justice's ruling that South Africa's presence in Namibia is illegal, and urge them to leave that country as soon as possible?

Lord Balniel: The main point is that we have instructed Her Majesty's Ambassador to express our concern about these reports, and to urge the South African Government to intervene urgently. The hon. Member will know that, just recently, the Supreme Court in Windhoek has granted interim interdicts prohibiting the flogging of their political opponents and of women by one of the two major tribal authorities an the area, and I am sure that the Supreme Court's decision will be respected.

Mr. Kinnock: Is the Minister aware that he can show as much concern as he likes, but the response that has come from M. C. Botha, the Minister for Bantu Administration, is that it is none of the South African Government's business? Is the Minister also aware that if he went to South-West Africa and described that territory as "Namibia" he would be liable to flogging, because calling their country "Namibia" is the offence which most of the hundred people who have been publicly flogged have committed? Surely he can do something more than merely show concern.

Lord Balniel: I should have thought the most we could do was to express concern and urge that the South African Government should intervene urgently, and this we have done.

European Political Union

Mr. Deakins: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the matter of EEC political union is next to be discussed in the EEC Council.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: No date has been fixed for discussion in the Council of the objective of European Union set out in paragraph 16 of the 1972 Paris

summit communiqué. The Paris summit requested the institutions of the Community to draw up a report on the subject before the end of 1975.

Mr. Deakins: What parliamentary or statutory authority do Her Majesty's Government have for this commitment to European Union? If there is no such authority, is this not an unprecedented extension of the power of the executive?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: No, Sir. This is a matter which should be studied by the Community and by the Community institutions, and reports should be made to the Governments representing the different countries in the Community. I see nothing unconstitutional in that. Every Government can consider the matter, and the national Parliaments will have an opportunity to comment.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is becoming increasingly necessary to have a common approach to foreign policy on the grave matters which confront the European Community at the moment? Is it not also true that the countries in the EEC are, without exception, in favour of closer collaboration in the foreign policy field? Will my right hon. Friend therefore use his best offices to accelerate the move towards closer collaboration in foreign policy?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: Yes. It is in the political field that we have had some success. The handicaps have been in the economic field. How far we can take this process is a matter for consensus over the next few years. I think the House knows that I have never attached federal or confederal labels. I think that Europe will work out her own pattern of co-operation.

Mr. Shore: As the Prime Minister has committed himself to European Union by 1980, and since European Union must, by definition, include some concept of political union, does the right hon. Gentleman not think that he really owes it to the country, in this extremely important matter, at least, to publish, even in draft form, what he himself thinks should be the content of such a political union?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: No, Sir, because I think it is sensible to proceed step by step and see where we can agree.

Greece

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any plans officially to meet the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Anthony Royle: No, Sir.

Mr. Fraser: The situation has now changed, but will the Under-Secretary of State say whether, before there is recognition of the new régime, he will ask for assurances that there will be a restoration of democracy in Greece? Can he also tell us whether NATO has any views about the constant seizures of power by the army, and whether we, as a member of NATO, will urge the restoration of liberty, democracy and the rule of law in accordance with the terms of the charter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation?

Mr. Royle: As the hon. Gentleman said, the situation has changed since he put down his question. We are of course assessing the question of Greece, to determine whether the new régime fulfils our normal criteria for recognition. As regards representations, I told the House on 23rd July that the then Greek Government were aware of our hope that Greece will be restored to full democratic processes. But we have no locus standi to make representations to any foreign government, even after the question of recognition has been decided, about the way in which they run their internal affairs.

Mr. Whitehead: As one of the first acts of the new régime in Greece has been to denounce President Papadopoulos for rigging the plebiscite, and as acceptance of that plebiscite was the ground given for recognition of that régime, should not the hon. Gentleman now apologise?

Mr. Royle: I think that all these matters are internal affairs for Greece, and are not ones for Her Majesty's Government. But I should like to say that I am naturally distressed by the loss of life in the recent clashes in Athens, and the House will wish to join me in expressing the hope that Greece will very soon be restored to full democratic processes.

Falkland Islands

Mr. Luce: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth

Affairs what progress is being made on the implementation of the Joint Agreement on Communications of June 1971 between Great Britain, the Falkland Islands and Argentina.

Mr. Amery: Good progress has been made on the implementation of the agreement. There has been a marked increase in traffic between the Islands and the Argentine mainland and there is now a weekly air service between Port Stanley and Comodoro Rivadavia.

Mr. Luce: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in order to see a continuation of the improvement in the relationship between Britain and the Falkland Islands on the one hand and the Argentine on the other, it is important to stick rigidly to the terms of the agreement? Will he say, first, whether, and, if so, when, Britain will construct a permanent airfield? Secondly, does he agree that this kind of practical arrangement, which treats the question of sovereignty as a separate issue, might be a guideline for an improved relationship between Great Britain and Spain over the question of Gibraltar?

Mr. Amery: Work on the permanent airfield is going forward as planned. I take note of the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. I hope that the Spanish authorities will do so, too.

Entry Certificate Applications (India)

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will set up a consular office at Ahmedabad, Gujarat State, India, to deal with applications for entry certificates for the United Kingdom.

Lord Balniel: No, Sir. This is a matter which can most satisfactorily continue to be handled by the office of the deputy high commissioner in Bombay.

Mr. Cox: Is the Minister aware that I have constituents who have relatives living in India, who have a right of entry into this country but have to travel hundreds of miles to Bombay at great expense, and who are often required to do that two or three times in order to have their papers examined? Is he further aware that the setting up of a small consular office, where there could be an


initial examination of papers prior to the final examination taking place in Bombay, would be of great help to these people and, I suggest, to the high commission office in Bombay? Will he therefore reconsider this decision?

Lord Balniel: Of course I am concerned whenever difficulties are caused to people, or whenever any delays occur. But one of the main causes of delay is that the post must satisfy itself that there is no element of fraud in the application—that is very important—and setting up branch offices would only add to the delay. We believe that in Bombay applicants are normally interviewed on the day on which they apply, so there is no particular problem there.

Mr. Redmond: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that I, too, have Gujarati constituents, who have difficulty because their relations tend to turn up at London Airport without proper papers issued in India and are turned back, because of the tough nature of the Immigration Act? Will he make it quite clear to our people in Bombay that they should not allow people to leave India without proper papers, and thereby avoid a great deal of disappointment?

Lord Balniel: Obviously, my hon. Friend has raised an important point. There is a very real problem, due to the incidence of forged documents, or of genuine documents bearing false particulars. In these circumstances, it is really important that all applicants are interviewed and all documents checked very carefully by the High Commission Office.

Commonwealth Relations

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will now make a statement on Great Britain's future relations with the Commonwealth.

Lord Balniel: We attach great value to the Commonwealth association. We shall continue to do so, and to play an active part in Commonwealth affairs.

Mr. Dormand: In view of the devastating effect which the Government's obsession with the EEC has had on our relations with the Commonwealth and the utter failure of the Prime Minister to make any impact at the Ottawa Common-wealth

Conference, does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the British Government must now take the initiative on the widest possible range of social, economic and educational effects, in order to try to re-establish our credibility in the Commonwealth?

Lord Balniel: The hon. Gentleman is completely out of touch with the situation. The Ottawa Conference demonstrated that our Commonwealth links are stronger than ever before.

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it was absolutely clear at the recent Common, wealth Parliamentary Association Conference in London that there is still tremendous enthusiasm for the Commonwealth and furthermore, that most of the delegations there not only understood Britain's decision to join the EEC but accepted in full our right to be an independent nation?

Lord Balniel: I attended that conference, and I can underline and reinforce every word of what my hon. Friend has said.

Sir G. de Freitas: In view of the answer to Question No. 8, to the effect that the high commissioners do not advise local British firms about wages, will the Minister confirm that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office still receives regular reports from our high commissioners on the activities of British firms in those territories?

Lord Balniel: I really cannot see what that has got to do with the Question which I have just answered. If the hon. Gentleman had put the supplementary question to Question No. 8, my answer would have been "Yes."

Sir G. de Freitas: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I wish to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

EEC Regulations and Directives

Mr. Jay: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many regulations, decisions and directives purporting to have legal effect in the United Kingdom have been approved by the EEC Commission in 1973 without reference to the Council of Ministers.

Mr. John Davies: Between 1st January and 15th November 1973 the Commission made 2,836 regulations, and addressed to the United Kingdom, either alone or in conjunction with other member States, 126 decisions and seven directives. These are binding in accordance with the provisions of Article 189 of the EEC Treaty.
As the Second Report of the Select Committee on European Community Secondary Legislation observes, the overwhelming bulk of Commission instruments are very limited in their scope or content and their average effective life is nine days.

Mr. Jay: Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that these administrative decrees, made in secret by an unelected body, with no representatives in this country on it—since the commissioners are international civil servants—and with no consultations with the British Parliament, have any morally or legally binding effect on this country?

Mr. Davies: Within the framework of the total activities of the Community it is obviously necessary and right that within these detailed areas there should be delegations to a body competent to deal with it. But the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in what he says. The fact is that the main parts of these instruments are subject to consideration by management committees, on which there is official advice from the member countries.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Will not my right hon. Friend confirm that at least half the regulations which have been mentioned deal with the variable levy on cereals, which are purely administrative, and that it would be a complete and utter waste of time of this House to debate them at all? They change from day to day.

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is correct in every particular. I suggest that it would also be of interest to the House to see exactly what the Select Committee of the House has suggested in terms of a screening and sifting arrangement.

Council of Ministers

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what items he hopes to place on the agenda for the next meeting of the Council of Ministers.

Mr. John Davies: I would draw my hon. Friend's attention to the estimate of subject headings likely to come up for discussion in the Council in December, which was placed in the Vote Office on 26th November.

Mr. Marten: As long as Britain remains a member of the Common Market, should not the Government try to get a harmonised and even-handed policy towards sanctions against Rhodesia? Is it right that Britain should operate 100 per cent. sanctions against Rhodesia while France, Germany and Italy are the biggest sanctions busters in Europe? While I accept that the Government have raised this matter with the countries concerned and with the United Nations, may we be told the reason why it has never been put on the agenda of the Council of Ministers? Would it upset the Common Market countries?

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is under an entirely mistaken impression. The truth is that these issues are matters to be raised directly with the countries concerned, irrespective of whether they are members of the Community, and through the United Nations. This is, in fact, what the Government do.

Mr. Richard: At the next meeting of the Council of Ministers, no doubt, the Government will wish to discuss a common energy policy for Europe. Will the right hon. Gentleman, in view of his last answer to me a few minutes ago, confirm that it is open to Common Market countries, if they wish, to increase the level of oil exports from the other Common Market countries to Holland, and that the Arab representatives who are in Europe at the moment have not sought to remove that right? Is that the position? Could we be clear about it?

Mr. Davies: May I make this quite clear? The question of the movement of products between Community countries, to which I imagine the hon. and learned Gentleman refers, is a matter for the industry involved. The hon. and learned Gentleman refers to Governments or countries doing these things. It is, in fact, companies which are responsible for this movement.

Mr. Churchill: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that Her


Majesty's Government will at least not accede to the request made by Mr. Sadat to the EEC recently, for 400 tons of grain, so long as there is any question of fuel not being made fully available to members of the European Economic Community?

Mr. Davies: I cannot answer that question without notice.

EEC Summit Conference

Mr. Russell Johnston: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he will seek to ensure the establishment of a political secretariat at the forthcoming EEC summit conference.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I cannot say now what will be discussed at the summit conference in Copenhagen. As regards a political secretariat, Her Majesty's Government remain of the opinion that in due course a modest secretariat would be useful. This would, of course, be for agreement with our partners.

Mr. Johnston: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that as things stand at present, every step towards European integration means, essentially, a diminution of democratic control? Is it not, therefore, most urgent that some mechanism be established which will enable a full and continuous discussion of how the Community should be democratised, how Parliament could be strengthened and how direct elections can be introduced?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: How we conduct ourselves most efficiently is a matter which we should always be discussing, but that is a matter for discussion and decision within the Council. I cannot forecast at what point we shall agree to set up the secretariat. The political machinery for helping Foreign Ministers is working reasonably satisfactorily, but the secretariat will be an improvement upon that.

Mr. Molloy: Would it not be even more disgraceful and more dangerous for this political secretariat to be established? Any decisions and directives it issued could only be read by Members of this House with no opportunity for comment, debate or amendment, and with no chance of us rejecting them.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I was not thinking of a political secretariat in the terms in which the hon. Member speaks. I was thinking of one which would serve the Foreign Ministers.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Will my right hon. Friend confirm what my right hon. Friend the Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) that there are certain questions such as dealings with Rhodesia where they are to act directly or through the United Nations, and as though the Common Market had never existed? Are there matters which may be disregarded and which do not involve the special relationship?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The breach of sanctions by individual firms is a matter for the individual Governments which are responsible. I cannot see that the Community could have any influence, for example, over a particular firm in France, Germany or Italy.

Crown Agents' Staff (Appointments)

Mr. George Cunningham: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the rules relating to taking up of appointments by former members of the staff of the Crown Agents in commercial companies.

Lord Balniel: I have been asked to reply.
The rules follow those applied to civil servants.

Mr. Cunningham: Will the Minister confirm that Mr. Alan Challis was, until the last day of October this year, Director of Finance of the Crown Agents and from 1st November this year is the Deputy Chairman of the First National Finance Corporation? Will he also confirm that the Crown Agents held, before that date and now, a large holding of First National stock amounting, in June, to 10,622,000 shares and now amounting to about 8½ per cent. of the stock of First National? Does the Minister agree that it was the job of this man to put that money in that place or somewhere else, and in the light of these facts will the Minister responsible make a statement to the House about this case?

Lord Balniel: I can confirm the position held by Mr. Challis. The hon. Member is implying that there is a conflict of loyalties here. The Chairman of the Crown Agents has reported to the Minister that he was satisfied that the relationship between the Crown Agents and the FNFC and between Mr. Challis and the FNFC were not incompatible with his holding this appointment. On the scale of the Crown Agents' investment in the FNFC, Crown Agents hold about 6 per cent. of the equity as a routine investment.

Mrs. Hart: Is it right that rules applying to civil servants should be applied in quite this way to staff of the Crown Agents? Civil servants are not normally asked to be directors of companies holding equity shares, and there is therefore an anomaly here which, frankly, the normal rules do not cover. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at this and consider what special rules now need to be applied to members of the Crown Agents' staff.

Lord Balniel: I can certainly look at the rules. The hon. Lady will notice that I said that the rules follow those applied to civil servants. The basis of those rules can be found in the July 1937 White Paper on the acceptance of business appointments by officers of the Crown Service. I shall certainly look at this again, if that is regarded as being desirable, but the rules are long established and well respected.

Mr. Cunningham: The Minister referred to a 6 per cent. holding by the Crown Agents. That is a much lower figure than the one previously given by a Minister in this House.

Lord Balniel: The information at my disposal is that the Crown Agents hold about 6 per cent. of the equity as a routine investment. They also deal with the FNFC in the money market, as they do with many other banks and finance houses. That is the figure I have been given, and I believe it to be correct.

Bangladesh (Aid)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much aid has been given to Bangladesh for jute mill machinery and

for projects connected with the jute industry.

Lord Balniel: Approximately £920,000 for jute mill machinery and spares.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the Minister aware of the basic importance of the jute industry to Bangladesh? I welcome the amount of aid already given, but will the Minister have negotiations through the specialised agencies to see what more can be done in order to re-establish what was a thriving economy and one which has done well in the last six months? Will he also, at some future date, give the House a report about what has happened to the whole of the aid to Bangladesh?

Lord Balniel: The hon. Member is correct. The jute industry is of immense importance to Bangladesh. We intend to send a jute mission to Bangladesh early next year to see how we can help the industry. Until the mission has reported I cannot say how much aid we are likely to provide, but we are prepared to give the jute industry a top priority in our aid to Bangladesh.

Mr. Shore: I, too, welcome the aid that the Minister has just announced. However, will he say whether he has applied or intends to apply for a waiver in respect of the EEC tariff on imported jute manufactured goods from Bangladesh as from 1st January next? If he does not do that, the aid that he has just announced will be cancelled out by the imposition of the tariff.

Lord Balniel: This is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The EEC and India initialled an agreement on 6th November on jute and coir products, under which the EEC will reduce the common customs tariff on these goods by up to 60 per cent. up to 1975, in return for voluntary restraint on exports by India.

Contract and Specialist Personnel

Mr. Guy Barnett: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will establish and maintain a register within his Department of contract and specialist personnel who have worked abroad under its auspices.

Lord Balniel: The Overseas Development Administration is studying the possibility of establishing a central personnel register on a computer.

Mr. Barnett: Is the Minister aware that this is not before time? Is he aware of the enormous fund of experience and expertise that this country now has at its disposal as a result of the many contract personnel and experts that we have sent to developing countries? Will he see that this has a top priority, in view of the great value of these people in our education system and within other spheres? Will this register, once established, be available to local education authorities and other bodies that need the information it may be able to provide.

Lord Balniel: The hon. Member will welcome the fact that we are studying the possibility of placing this information on the computer. Of course, the ODA appointments officers keep records of people interested in serving abroad under different disciplines, and the establishment of the register on a computer will certainly make the whole system more efficient and effective.

Mr. Haselhurst: Will my right hon. Friend say whether this will in any way help to ensure that qualified and experienced people can be sent to the more inaccessible territories, to which, in the ordinary course of events, they might not be directed.

Lord Balniel: We are at the moment studying the possibility of establishing such a register and it would make the whole system more effective in getting experienced people to places where their help will be most effective.

Mr. Pavitt: Will it be possible to use the register to ensure that people who go abroad on two-year contracts can return to the kind of specialty they had before they left, thus avoiding the problem of those returning finding that they have lost their place on the promotion ladder in this country?

Lord Balniel: The hon. Member raises a valid point and we shall look into it to see whether the register which may be established can assist in this way.

Holland

Mr. Kaufman: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth

Affairs if he will seek to pay an official visit to Holland.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I have no plans to do so at present. The Netherlands Foreign Minister visited London as my guest on 27th June and we, of course, meet regularly at multilateral meetings, such as that of the Council of Europe and NATO.

Mr. Kaufman: But should not the right hon. Gentleman go to Holland and tell the citizens of that loyal and steadfast ally how he reconciles British membership of the European Economic Community with the oil blockade Britain is carrying on against Holland?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I am not sure that the words "loyalty" and "steadfast" come very well from the hon. Gentleman. I recognise Holland as a loyal ally.

Mr. William Hamilton: The man of Munich.

Mr. John Mendelson: Has the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary seen the statement by the Chancellor of the Federal Republic, in a toast to President Pompidou in Paris two days ago, that it was the duty of all European countries to stand by Holland? Will the right hon. Gentleman address himself seriously to that proposition? Is it not the Government's duty to take the same view? Will the right hon. Gentleman comment publicly on Chancellor Brandt's statement and say whether he and the Government agree with that point of view?

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: We have agreed with our allies and the members of the Community, including the Dutch, about how to handle the oil problem. The matter is being considered by the political directors of the Community, and we shall return to the problem when the Foreign Ministers meet again on 4th and 5th December.

Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), he suggested that my hon. Friend was not loyal or steadfast. That, coming from someone who sold this country out at Munich and who is selling it out to the Arabs is not good enough. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has destroyed his own point of order by the nature of the language he has used.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for someone to question the loyalty of an hon. Member? As one who disagrees with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) on many points, I ask you whether an hon. Member's differing from the policy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary can be put on the same plane as disloyalty to the country, which is a quite different matter. If it can, probably every hon. Member can be regarded as disloyal. With your long experience, Mr. Speaker, you will know that that is a not a customary thing for a Minister to say about an hon. Member, and I therefore ask you to ask the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, despite his elevated position, to withdraw that remark.

Mr. Speaker: The Chair has to try to administer the rules of order. Obviously, I deprecate very much personal suggestions, from whichever side they may come, and I deprecate strong language. I also regret sedentary interruptions. I do my best to reduce the temperature of the Chamber when I can. I have no power to order a right hon. or hon. Member to withdraw, unless in my view there has been a breach of order. I do not think that on this occasion there has been a breach of order.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I did not mean to question the loyalty to this country of the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman). If the hon. Gentleman interpreted what I said in that way, of course I withdraw it.

BRITISH RAILWAYS

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about future provision for British Railways.
In July last year, I told the House of a significant deterioration in British Railways' finances. This led me to conclude that the financial provisions of the 1968 Act, like all previous attempts to solve the railways' difficulties, had proved inadequate and that new legislation would be needed. Since then, the Railways Board has at my request, in close consultation

with my Department, been conducting a series of thorough studies on the prospects and needs of its industry. In considering the conclusions, I have taken account of wider transport policy considerations.
The board's studies showed no prospect in the foreseeable future of a railway network of anything like the present size being viable. Three possible options were therefore considered against the background of social and economic needs, the preservation of the environment and the conservation of energy supplies. The first is wholesale withdrawal from large areas, achieving savings in the long run, but with high transition costs. The second is piecemeal closure of a significant number of individual loss-making passenger services. The economies would be relatively small, since most of the system costs would remain while revenues fell. The Government do not believe that either of those alternatives would be in the country's interest.
The third and, in the Government's view, the right course is to maintain a railway network of roughly the present size, and to improve it. Unremunerative passenger services should be kept in being as long as they are justified on social and environmental grounds.
The Government broadly accept the strategy recommended by the Railways Board. This will mean substantially higher investment in four key areas.
Fast inter-city services will be improved, beginning with the introduction of the high-speed diesel train on the London-Bristol-South Wales route. The board will also press on with the development of the advanced passenger train, which is ahead of comparable systems elsewhere.
Secondly, conditions will be made more tolerable for the long-suffering commuter. Improvements will include electrification of some suburban services, and there will be new rolling stock, better interchanges and modernised passenger terminals.
Thirdly, rail freight and parcels services will be rationalised and made more efficient; with computer-controlled wagon movement and high capacity wagons to give faster turn-round times and greater reliability. The Government and the board are seeking to identify suitable


freight traffics which could be attracted from road to rail. I am accordingly approaching 100 of the largest firms, in consultation with the Freight Transport Association.
Fourthly, increased investment in track and signalling on the key parts of the system will provide even higher standards of safety and efficiency, at the same time reducing operating costs.
I therefore propose a switch of resources within the transport sector, mainly from urban road to rail, to provide the necessary investment for the railways. This will increase over the next five years from some £140 million in 1973–74 to £225 million in 1977–78, which includes provision for the initial stages of a rail link to the Channel Tunnel. The Government will also continue to provide substantial revenue support to the railways. All this is consistent with the determination of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to contain the growth of public expenditure, figures for which will be laid before the House next month in the Public Expenditure White Paper.
The Government's proposals for the railways will mean a continuing programme of work both for the railway workshops and for manufacturing industry over a period of years. They will enable all concerned with the railways industry to plan ahead more realistically than in the past. The Government believe that the policies they propose are necessary in order to achieve an adequately equipped industry. They will expect all engaged in it to ensure that the opportunities offered by this increased investment and by the high-speed developments in particular are exploited to the full.
The necessary powers to provide appropriate financial support will be taken in a Bill to be presented to Parliament shortly. This will be supported by a transport White Paper, which will underline the greater emphasis the Government are giving to railways and other forms of public transport.

Mr. Bradley: The House will be obliged for this long-awaited statement. We shall want to study it carefully. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it represents a remarkable reversal of what

he and his colleagues were saying a year or two ago? We acknowledge that conversion to the cause of railway development is due to the pressure of public opinion, but why has the commitment fallen short of the Railways Board's requirement which was put to him in June of this year? The board asked for a nine-year programme amounting to £1,800 million worth of investment. The right hon. Gentleman has given it only four firm investment years, unlike the British Steel Corporation, which received endorsement for 10 years. Does the right hon. Gentleman's statement represent only an interim plan? Does he agree that the board, for effective planning purposes and to create confidence among its customers and staff, needs a longer-term guarantee of resources?
What account has been taken of the present situation? If we are to have recurring fuel crises, surely it is of paramount importance to develop the railway system on a long-term basis as part of an integrated transport and energy policy? Will the Government themselves answer the questions which they put to the board? Is there a viable network and what is the Government's definition of a necessary railway? How is it proposed to finance this programme? What proportion of it will come from infrastructure grants? Will those grants be more generous?
It is certain that the board will not be able to service the loan debt without running up huge deficits on account of interest charges. What explicit proposals has he for dealing with that problem? Does he envisage a return to deficit financing? On social grants, can he say what effect the EEC regulation 1192/69 will have?
What proportion of the investment programme can be attributed to the Channel Tunnel? [HON. MEMBERS : "Too long".] The right hon. Gentleman made a long statement and I am making one which is half as long. The right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that the board's proposals exclude costs related to the Channel Tunnel, which is part of a separate Government decision.
We note that the right hon. Gentleman is to consult 100 firms with a view to identifying suitable traffic transference from road to rail. Does not that show how premature he was to withdraw the


quantity licensing provisions in the 1968 Act as long ago as July 1970? Finally, when can we expect the right hon. Gentleman's promised White Paper? The Opposition believe that the railways' rôle can be properly assessed only as part of the entire transport problem.

Mr. Peyton: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman should have been led to expect such different things as a result of the foolish statements made by so many of his right hon. and hon. Friends. The only noticeable reversal has been the reversal of his and their expectations
I have a good deal of sympathy with the request for a nine-year investment programme. We have produced a five-year investment programme which will roll on year by year as a continuous process. Nobody is more conscious than I am of the need for the railways to see as far ahead as possible. The Government want to see progress made and they will judge their future policies in the light of that progress.
The hon. Gentleman referred to support. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that matter will be dealt with in a Bill which I hope to present to Parliament before Christmas. The hon. Gentleman asked me whether there would be a return to deficit financing. One of the difficulties which he and I must face is that we have never completely got away from deficit financing. The hopes which were laid upon the 1968 Act were soon dashed and seen to mean nothing.
I was more than surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman ask about quantity licensing. The wisdom of his right hon. Friends, who had a perfect chance to use the quantity licensing system if they had wanted to do so, led them to turn away. I am sure that they were right to do so. The adoption of the system, which is still on the statute book, would constitute a bureaucratic spider's web which would frustrate transport and help no one.

Mr. J. H. Osborn: My right hon. Friend knows that his statement will have a warm welcome from those of his hon. Friends who have worked with him. It will be recognised as being realistic. Will my right hon. Friend indicate to what extent there will be a change from diesel to electrification and to what

extent there will be further investment in electrification? Second, he mentioned some of the commuter lines. What improvements can be expected on the London-Midland line north of St. Pancras, which has very slow inter-city times?

Mr. Peyton: I do not doubt that those responsible have heard my hon. Friend's observation. I am grateful to him for his kindly welcome of what I said. There will be further progress made in electrification. That is allowed for in the programme.

Mr. Buchanan: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley)—namely, how do the Government propose to raise the money? Is the board to be involved again in interest payments and deficit financing?

Mr. Peyton: British Rail will have full access to the national loans fund as it has always had under successive administrations. I have already told the House that I shall be introducing detailed proposals.

Sir R. Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend say whether his plans for improving the viability of the railway system will include a positive freight policy to encourage heavy freight off the roads, where it is so unwelcome, and on to rail? Does he realise that public sentiment against juggernaut lorries has reached such a pitch that if he does not adopt such a policy he will be compelled to confine the juggernaut lorries to certain trunk roads? Once he does that he will remove the argument for using such lorries because he will have destroyed their flexibility. Will he address himself seriously to the problem of getting the heavy freight off our congested roads to where it belongs—namely, on the railway system?

Mr. Peyton: I constantly and seriously address myself to the problem referred to by my hon. Friend. It is beyond my power to change things to the extent that every factory, warehouse and farm, for example, will suddenly be provided with a railhead. The majority of freight hauls in this country are comparatively short. No scheme has yet been devised


which will provide the degree of flexibility by rail which is available by lorry.
I know that people dislike the lorry very much, but they should remind themselves of their great dependence on it. I have always said that we must move towards a system of designated roads. I am sorry to hear that my hon. Friend does not agree. Such a system would permit large vehicles to move freely on roads where there is a rôle for them. The idea that vehicles should be free brutally to force a passage down any road without regard for the size of the road or the size of the vehicle is out of date. It takes time, of course, to produce roads, particularly bearing in mind not just the limited resources available but the length of our procedures. The roads are always very acceptable "there" but they are not always acceptable "here".

Mr. Hooson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision must be welcomed throughout the House, particularly in view of the present energy supply crisis? Is he further aware that there has been a considerable rundown of personnel services, rolling stock and so on, on the railways over the last two years, particularly in some areas such as my own in Mid-Wales? What does he intend to do about that? Finally, will the White Paper contain arguments for developing and extending the railway services to include perhaps the accommodation of far more freight than is accommodated today?

Mr. Peyton: I am grateful for a Liberal welcome, even if it is rather diminished by its tail. I would very much like to attract freight from road to rail, and I have put forward today some proposals as to how we might proceed in that direction.

Mr. Maude: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind, in his welcome progress towards a more rational transport policy, that it is necessary not only to get freight off the roads back on to rail but to prevent more freight coming off rail on to the roads, and that one of the most desirable ways of doing this is to stop building ever larger and larger motorways over more and more of the country, which creates new road freight traffic and takes it off rail? Will he also bear in mind that this would also help to save Government expenditure?

Mr. Peyton: I can only say that, with respect, I note what my hon. Friend said. If he were to give me advice on how it is to be achieved in practical terms, no one would be more grateful than I.

Mr. Bagier: The right hon. Gentleman says there has not been a change of policy. Does he remember that the previous Conservative Government, of which he was a back-bench supporter, gave instructions to Lord Beeching which hopelessly slashed the railway system to the size it is now? While we welcome these proposals, they are not enough. What is the right hon. Gentleman's excuse for saying to the board that it cannot fulfil the 10-year programme for which it asked him?
Does not the present situation show clearly the need to go in for widespread electrification? Does not the Middle East situation underline that fact? How is the amount of money the right hon. Gentleman has agreed to grant to be spent by the board?

Mr. Peyton: That is a question I would rather leave the British Railways Board to deal with in detail rather than attempt to answer it in a question and answer period. The hon. Gentleman asks for more. I am bound to say that that is predictable, but always in such circumstances I find the memory of Oliver Twist asking for more rather more moving than the spectacle of the hon. Gentleman imitating him.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Did my right non Friend's studies lead him to the conclusion that many of the problems of the railways have arisen because they were starved of investment, particularly during the term of office of the Labour Government? Does he realise that his new deal for the railways will help not only the railways but also the morale of those working on the railways? As he is responsible for Scotland as well as England, and referred to the concentration of spending on certain growth points, what does my right hon. Friend envisage as the future of the Scottish railway system, with particular reference to investment?

Mr. Peyton: For once, I was bold enough to couple Scotland with England. I assure my hon. Friend that since I have been in office some of the Scottish services which have survived would have


been unlikely to survive in England. That is the extent of the prejudice which exists. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he was kind enough to say. He has rightly drawn attention to the investment figures for which the Labour Government were responsible. The Opposition have had sufficient delicacy not to raise the matter themselves.

Mr. Spriggs: What does the total investment figure include? Does it include the initial cost of the Channel Tunnel? What other matters are included?

Mr. Peyton: I am sorry that I did not answer that question when the hon. Member for Leicester North-East (Mr. Bradley) asked it, and I apologise to him. The amount included for the Channel Tunnel will, in 1976–77, be £17 million, and in 1977–78 it will be £24 million.

Mr. Ridsdale: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, especially for those who, like myself, represent areas with large commuter traffic and whose commuters have had to strap-hang for long periods, covering 90 miles or so. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that investment in the Haven ports, which now constitute almost the second largest port in the country, will not be starved because of the Channel Tunnel and Maplin? What percentage increase in annual investment does this represent for the railways compared with the last 10 years?

Mr. Peyton: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's comment about commuters. Their services have been crying out for rejuvenation for a long time. His question about ports goes rather wide of the subject of railways. I should like to write to my hon. Friend about his question on proportions and give him the figure then. But my statement represents a very considerable increase not only in the quantity of investment but also—very important indeed—in the length of look it gives to British Railways for the future.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on now having been seduced by the very principles of the 1968 Act which he so successfully spurned in Opposition. In view of his more benign attitude, will he give an assurance to Welsh Members that no

further closures will be considered in Wales until the Government-sponsored Graham Rees survey is finished, that the Cambrian coast line, which is about to be closed, will remain open, and that the Teify Valley line, the closure of which a few weeks ago has brought great hardship to that area, will be re-opened forthwith?

Mr. Peyton: Considerations of prudence and economy of time suggest that I would be wise not to deal with individual services today. But no services will be closed without being very carefully looked at in the light of this statement. I do not wish to deride in any way the 1968 Act, which was a genuine attempt to solve a most difficult problem. No one would have been happier than I if it had not been necessary to make this statement. Unfortunately, there has been here a problem which, over many years since the war, successive Governments have attempted to deal with, but none has yet been totally successful.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: What expected addition to public expenditure in 1974–75 will ensue from my right hon. Friend's statement?

Mr. Peyton: None at all.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: The Railways Board's submission to the right hon. Gentleman was based on the assumption that it would be carrying less freight in 1981 than it carries now. How much of the investment which he has announced will go into freight? Apart from that, in view of the energy situation, how much of the investment will go into electrification? Also, since most European countries have embarked on investment programmes almost 10 times as big as the right hon. Gentleman has announced, how much is he prepared to give the board under the normalisation regulations of the EEC?

Mr. Peyton: I understand that the Community regulations represent no interference at all in any of the proposals I have made or would like to make for British Railways. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not go into too much detail about freight. I very much doubt whether British Railways at the moment could give an accurate forecast as to the quantity of freight which the


railways hope to carry in future. I hope that the quantity will be roughly the same, though it will not be of the same character.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Obviously these matters will have to be debated, but since this is an Opposition Supply day I must try to protect Opposition time.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Mr. McMaster: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, unde. Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
last night's violence in Northern Ireland and the assassinations, bombings and hijackings being pursued at this moment by the IRA in Northern Ireland".
I shall address you briefly, Mr. Speaker, first of all on the importance of this matter. After a period of comparative calm in Northern Ireland, since the announcement of the formation of the new Executive last Thursday there has been a period of unprecedented violence in Northern Ireland. At the weekend there were two serious attacks across the Northern Ireland border from the Republic of Ireland by rocket on RUC stations. Three of Her Majesty's soldiers were deliberately assassinated in Northern Ireland at the weekend and two civilians were killed. There were serious attacks on the homes of two public figures in Northern Ireland—one Mr. Austin Currie, who is one of the 11 members of the new Executive, and the other no less a person than the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland who at the weekend had two bombs placed at his house, one of which exploded in the middle of the night.
There were other attacks and armed robberies, houses burned and many persons seriously injured. This violence culminated last night in many vehicles being hijacked in Northern Ireland. Many hundreds of private cars, lorries and even public transport vehicles were hijacked and placed across 45 to 50 roads, which were blocked. I am informed that 25 of these roads in Northern Ireland are still blocked. Three civilians were killed last night and one

member of the UDR was deliberately attacked and seriously injured.
There is undoubtedly a responsibility in this House, and I am sorry to see Members of this House paying so little attention—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not the sort of comment the hon. Gentleman should make in putting forward his application.

Mr. McMaster: I am attempting to establish the fact that this is a matter which concerns this House. Responsibility for law and order was removed from Northern Ireland.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The only point that is relevant so far as I am concerned is whether I should interfere with the business of the House today or tomorrow by allowing this debate to take place. That is the point.

Mr. McMaster: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I am now addressing you under Standing Order No. 9 and paragraph (4) of that provision says that
In determining whether a matter is proper to be discussed Mr. Speaker shall have regard to the extent to which it concerns the administrative responsibility of Ministers …
I was attempting to address you, Sir, on the administrative responsibility of Ministers. I urge you to consider this matter and to take into consideration the fact that this House and this House alone—not the new Assembly in Northern Ireland—has the responsibility.
On the urgency of the matter, I wish to emphasise that there is a definite fear in Northern Ireland of retaliation. In the past six months there have unfortunately been some regrettable incidents in which the loyalist population of Northern Ireland has felt aggrieved that serious matters are not receiving proper ventilation in this House and are not being properly brought to the attention of Ministers and that those Ministers are not taking appropriate action. I believe that it is very urgent that such matters should be brought to the attention of the House. It is the duty of Ministers to maintain law and order. The Queen's highway is being blocked—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is going on much too long. He should be


making a brief application. His remarks are an abuse of the Standing Order and of the conventions of the House.

Mr. McMaster: I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I had not intended to raise this matter since I expected a statement to be made either on Monday on today about these incidents. Unfortunately no statement has been made. You will recall, Sir, that there was an application just 10 days ago when there was an explosion in Birmingham and when three people were killed.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot let the hon. Gentleman continue. He must conclude his remarks in a sentence or two.

Mr. McMaster: I conclude by saying that unless there are to be two standards in the United Kingdom when there are incidents, one for Northern Ireland and one for the rest of the United Kingdom, there should be an urgent debate on these serious incidents of the past three or four days in Northern Ireland. The violence is quite intolerable.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely
last night's violence in Northern Ireland and the assassinations, bombings and hijacking being pursued at this moment by the IRA in Northern Ireland".
The way in which the hon. Member put forward his application really is an abuse of the conventions of the House. I am fully aware of the seriousness of the matter which he raises. There are tragic incidents happening all the time. As to whether the House should debate the matter, there are ways whether in Government or Opposition time—and indeed other ways—in which these matters can be raised. I have simply to make a proceduraly decision whether to allow business today or tomorrow to be interrupted so that the hon. Member's application shall have precedence.
My decision is a procedural one and I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman will seek all the other ways open to him to raise these important matters, but under Standing Order No. 9 I am afraid that I cannot grant his application.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 14TH DECEMBER

Members successful in the Ballot were : Miss Janet Fookes.

Dr. Shirley Summerskill.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry.

BILLS PRESENTED

TOWN AND COUNTRY AMENITIES

Sir John Rodgers, supported by Sir Geoffrey de Freitas, Mr. Grimond, Mr. Roy Jenkins, Mr. Sandys, Mr. G. R. Strauss, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. Robert Cooke, Mr. Ernle Money, Mr. Michael Grylls, Mr. John Wells, and Sir Brandon Rhys Williams, presented a Bill to make further provision for the control of development in the interest of amenity ; for the preservation and enhancement of conservation areas and of buildings of architectural or historic interest and their surroundings and landscapes ; and for related purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 25th January and to be printed. [Bill 18.]

YOUTH AND COMMUNITY

Mr. Alan Haselhurst, supported by Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. John Selwyn Gummer, Mr. Barry Jones, Mr. David Knox, Sir Gilbert Longden, Mr. Kenneth Marks, Mr. Charles Morrison, Mr. Nicholas Scott, Mr. Neil Kinnock, Miss Joan Lestor, and Mr. Michael Grylls, presented a Bill to make further provision with respect to youth services in the community and participation by youth in community development; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st February and to be printed. [Bill 19.]

CHILDREN

Dr. David Owen, supported by Mr. Leo Abse, Mr. Emlyn Hooson, Dame Joan Vickers, Mr. S. C. Silkin, Mr. J. C. Jennings, Mr. Phillip Whitehead, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Jack Ashley, Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Robert MacLennan, and Dr. Anthony Trafford, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to the adoption, guardianship and fostering of children ; to make further provision for the protection and care of children ; and


for purposes connected with those matters : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8th February and to be printed. [Bill 20.]

PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT

Mr. David James, on behalf of Mr. Ernie Money, supported by Mr. Leo Abse, Mr. Jeffrey Archer, Mr. Andrew Faulds, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Hugh Fraser, Mr. Clement Freud, Mr. John Gorst, Mr. Russell Kerr, Sir John Rodgers, and Mr. Michael Stewart, presented a Bill to amend the Copyright Act 1956 so as to make provision for the establishment of a public lending right; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 15th February and to be printed. [Bill 21.]

ABORTION (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Michael Grylls, supported by Mr. Deedes, Mr. Leo Abse, Dr. Vaughan, Mr. John Hunt, Mr. Eric Deakins, Mr. Nigel Fisher, Mr. Neville Sandelson, Miss Mervyn Pike, Mr. John Selwyn Gummer, Mr. David Steel, and Mr. Douglas Houghton, presented a Bill to regulate the referral to, and recommendation of, medical or other services in connection with treatment authorised by the Abortion Act 1967, where such referral or recommendation is made for reward otherwise than by a registered medical practitioner : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22nd February and to be printed. [Bill 22.]

LITIGANTS IN PERSON (COSTS)

Mr. Richard Luce, supported by Mr. George Darling, Mr. Arthur Davidson, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Norman Fowler, Mr. Edward Gardner, Mr. Raymond Gower, Mr. Emlyn Hooson, Mr. Norman Lamont, Mr. Frederick Mulley. Mrs. Sally Oppenheim, and Mr. Cecil Parkinson, presented a Bill to make further provision as to the costs recoverable by litigants in person in civil proceedings : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st March and to be printed. [Bill 23.]

LONDON PARISH COUNCILS

Mr. Graham Tope, supported by Mr. Dick Leonard, and Mr. Grimond, presented a Bill to make changes in the administration of local government in Greater London by the establishment of London Parish Councils : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 15th February and to be printed. [Bill 24.]

EDUCATION (MENTALLY-HANDICAPPED CHILDREN) (SCOTLAND)

Mr. Alex Eadie, supported by Mr. James Sillars, Mr. Harry Ewing, Mr. John Robertson, Mr. Adam Hunter, Mr. Dick Douglas, Mr. David Lambie, Mr. Tom Oswald, Mr. Russell Johnston, Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison, Sir John Gilmour, and Mr. George Machin, presented a Bill to make provision as respects Scotland for discontinuing the ascertainment of mentally-handicapped children as unsuitable for education at school, to impose a duty on education authorities to provide for the education of such children whether accommodated in a hospital within the meaning of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1960 or otherwise, and for purposes connected therewith. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st March and to be printed. [Bill 25.]

SCOTTISH AND WELSH PARLIAMENTS

Mr. Grimond, supported by Mr. David Steel, Mr. Emlyn Hooson, Mr. Russell Johnston, Mr. Donald Stewart, and Mrs. Margo MacDonald, presented a Bill to make new provisions for the government of the United Kingdom and to establish parliaments for Scotland and Wales : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st February and to be printed. [Bill 26.]

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (CONTAINERS)

Mr. David Price, supported by Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith, Mr. Edward Milne, Mr. T. H. H. Skeet, Mr. G. Elfed Davies, Mr. Edward M. Taylor, Mr. Edwin Wainwright, Mr. Patrick Cormack, Mr. Dick Leonard, and Mr. John Wells, presented a Bill to amend the Weights and Measures Act 1963 and the Weights and Measures Act (Northern Ireland) 1967


to enable provision to be made for ensuring that goods are made up for sale or for delivery after sale in containers of a particular description : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 5th April and to be printed. [Bill 27.]

REHABILITATION OF OFFENDERS

Mr. Kenneth Marks, supported by Sir John Foster, Mr. Edmund Dell, Mr. Alexander Lyon, Sir John Rodgers, Mr. Peter Archer, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Ian Percival, Mr. Gordon Oakes, Mr. William Hamling, and Mr. Edward du Cann, presented a Bill to facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders who have not been reconvicted of any serious offence for periods of years, to penalise the unauthorised disclosure of their previous convictions, to amend the law of defamation ; and for purposes connected therewith : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 25th January and to be printed. [Bill 28.]

LAND REGISTRATION (AMENDMENT)

Mr. G. R. Strauss presented a Bill to amend the Land Registration Act 1925: And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st March and to be printed. [Bill 29.]

HOME OWNERSHIP

Mr. Harold Gurden, on behalf of Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker, supported by Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg, Mr. Ralph Howell, Mr. J. R. Kinsey, Mr. Cyril Smith, Mr. David Austick, Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles, Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman, Mr. Mark Woodnutt, Mr. Derek Coombes, and Mrs. Jill Knight, presented a Bill to extend to the tenants of dwellings owned by local authorities and other housing bodies the right to acquire the ownership or leasehold of their homes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26th April and to be printed. [Bill 30.]

HARE COURSING

Mr. Marcus Lipton, supported by Mr. David Stoddart, Mr. Eric S. Heffer, Mr. Burden, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot, Mr. John Pardoe,

Mr. William Price, Mr. Dick Leonard, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Kenneth Lomas, and Mr. Concannon, presented a Bill to make hare coursing matches illegal : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 1st February and to be printed. [Bill 31.]

PRIVATE DETECTIVES (CONTROL)

Mr. Michael Fidler, supported by Mr. Norman Fowler, Mr. Hugh Dykes, Mr. Deedes, Mr. Edward Gardner, Mr. S. Clinton Davis, Mr. Greville Janner, and Mr. R. C. Mitchell, presented a Bill to provide for the disqualification of persons with criminal records from practising or describing themselves as private detectives : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22nd February and to be printed. [Bill 32.]

ARBITRATION

Sir John Foster, supported by Mr. Alan Green, Mr. Michael Hamilton, Sir Frederic Bennett, Mr. Peter Rees, Mr. Ian Percival, Mr. Edward Gardner, Mr. Norman Miscampbell, and Mr. Alexander Lyon, presented a Bill to give effect to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3rd May and to be printed. [Bill 33.]

ELECTRICITY AND GAS

Mr. Robert Hughes, supported by Mr. Brynmor John, Mr. Neil Carmichael, Mr. A. W. Stallard, Mr. Ronald King Murray, Mr. Albert Booth, Mr. Frank Allaun, and Mr. Arthur Latham, presented a Bill to make further provision with regard to the resale of gas and electricity supply ; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid : And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 5th April and to be printed. [Bill 34.]

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (RIGHTS OF TENANTS)

Mr. Gwynoro Jones, supported by Mr. Elystan Morgan, Mr. Goronwy Roberts, Mr. John Morris, Mr. John Mackie, Mr. William Edwards, Mr. David Clark, Mr. Caerwyn Roderick, Mr. Mark Hughes,


Mr. Denzil Davies, Mr. Tom Ellis, and Mr. Neil Kinnock, presented a Bill to make further provision with respect to the rights of tenants of agricultural holdings : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26th April and to be printed. [Bill 35.]

PROTECTION FROM HARASSMENT AND ILLEGAL EVICTION

Mr. Dick Leonard, supported by Mr. Michael Stewart, Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop, Mr. George Cunningham, Mr. John Grant, Mr. Eric S. Heffer, Mr. Gerald Kaufman, Mr. Marcus Lipton, Mr. Frederick Mulley, Mr. Charles Pannell, Mr. Julius Silverman, and Mr. A. W. Stallard, presented a Bill to provide further penalties for harassment and illegal eviction of tenants : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 15th February and to be printed. [Bill 36.]

COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES

Sir Elwyn Jones, supported by Mr. S. C Silkin, Mr. W. T. Williams, Mr. Arthur Davidson, Mr. John Fraser, Mr. Peter Archer, Mr. R. C. Mitchell, Mr. Brynmor John, Mr. Michael Cocks, Mr. Roland Moyle, Mr. Eric Deakins, and Mrs. Joyce Butler, presented a Bill to enable local authorities, local Law Societies and other institutions and bodies to provide on a non-profit making basis legal aid, advice, assistance, representation and other legal services through centres serving local communities; to enable local authorities to establish, manage and provide finance to such centres ; to enable charitable funds to be used for purposes connected with such centres ; to provide powers for the regulation of such centres ; to enable solicitors, barristers and others to be employed by or to provide services for such centres ; to provide limited exemption for such persons and centres from the obligation to comply with professional rules and practices ; and for purposes connected therewith : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3rd May and to be printed. [Bill 37.]

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forth with pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments).
That the draft Civil Defence (Planning) Regulations 1973 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments).

That the draft Civil Defence (Grant) (Amendment) Regulations 1973 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments).

That the draft Civil Defence (General) (Amendment) Regulations 1973 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments).

That the draft International Cocoa Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) (No. 2) Order 1973 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Prior.]

Question agreed to.

WELSH AFFAIRS

Ordered,

That the matters of Education in Wales and Agriculture in Wales being matters relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for their consideration.—[Mr. Prior.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,

That, at this day's Sitting, Mr. Speaker shall put any Question necessary to dispose of Proceedings on the Motion relating to Teachers' Superannuation not later than Seven o'clock.—[Mr. Prior.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[2ND ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.

Orders of the Day — TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION)

4.12 p.m.

Mr. Roy Hattersley: I beg to move,
That this House, noting the reduction in the costs of the teachers' superannuation scheme revealed by the 1971 Quinquennial Valuation, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to reduce the contribution paid by teachers to their superannuation scheme to 6 per cent., thus bringing their scheme into line with practice in most of the public service ; to support a return to the ratio of costs sharing between the teachers and the local education authorities agreed by their representatives in the Working Party in 1972 ; and to allow half of all teachers' war service to be credited for pension entitlement as is the practice in the Civil Service.

Mr. Speaker: I have to inform the House that I have not selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger).

Mr. Hattersley: My first task is an unusual but pleasant one. It is to offer the Government the Opposition's congratulations on having accepted, or at least having decided not to vote against, the motion that we are moving. The wisdom of that decision in terms of improving the relationship between the teachers and their employers is obvious and overwhelming. I hope that because of it and because of the improved relationship which may stem from today's decision we are beginning a process of re-establishing the confidence of teachers in their employers and in the Government, and, therefore, a process of improving the morale of the teaching profession, which its unions believe to be at a lower point than at any time in this century.
In some staff rooms the bitterness is so great that neither confidence nor morale will be increased easily or quickly. It is no coincidence that the major city education authorities have pressed the Government to take the step to which they are now agreeing. But, despite the depth of the bitterness and the insecurity that many teachers feel, I hope that

today can be the beginning of a new feeling of confidence that society is beginning to recognise their importance, to understand the crucial rôle that teachers can play, to meet some of their legitimate grievances and to listen to their understandable complaints.
As a result of the Government's decision to accept the spirit, the terms and, I suppose, the details of the motion—it is difficult to accept 6 per cent. in principle ; it has either to be accepted altogether or not at all—today is clearly a moment for rejoicing rather than for recrimination. But I know that the Secretary of State will understand that on a rather unusual occasion like today there are a number of questions to which the House and the country are entitled to be given answers.
The first question is : what prompted the Government to change their mind? The second is : why has the Department found it necessary over the past four months to adopt such an aggressive defence of the formula which it appears to be abandoning today? The third and most important question to which the House will want to know the answer is : what comments has the right hon. Lady on the damage which has been done to the education system by her insistence since 22nd June that she would not take the course which she is taking today?
The right hon. Lady looks puzzled when I speak of damage to the education system. I refer again to the feelings amongst teachers and the resentment which has built up since then. I hope that we shall be told why it was necessary to allow that resentment to increase when today we are in a position which we could have enjoyed over the past five months.
The House should have no doubt about the extent of the Government's change of mind and heart. Let me give three examples in case any doubts still remain. Administrative Circular 14/73 issued on 22nd June to local education authorities, without the unions which were parties to the agreement even being consulted, announced unilaterally the decision which is to be abandoned today.
In an Adjournment debate on 13th November the Under-Secretary hinted—and we were grateful for it—that there might be a change in the rules governing


war service, and, therefore, a degree of notice was given on that part of the question. But in the hon. Gentleman's answer on 6th November about the general contribution level to the benefit scheme he was positive and certain that the step being taken today would not be taken.
I give a third example of the strength of the Government's case as it was until yesterday or today and, therefore, the extent of their change of heart and mind. Anyone who has seen the two papers which the Department of Education and Science produced to refute the arguments of the National Association of Schoolmasters and the National Union of Teachers will have been impressed by what might be termed their intellectual aggression. There is no doubt that when they were written the Government were firm that what they now intended to do should not be done. In the light of that the House and the country need a firm explanation why this remarkable, though welcome, change has come about.
Today The Times says that the Secretary of State has already explained to the teachers that she is sympathetic to their claim. I have to tell the right hon. Lady that the teachers are not aware of that explanation. If she has made the explanation, which might have led us to believe that the change of heart and mind was coming about, I am sure that she will refer to it as the debate proceeds. If she cannot do that, we need an assurance on two points, and if she can give it I shall accept it without qualification. We need to be assured that the shift of attitude today is the result of a genuine change in judgment on the teachers' superannuation scheme. We also need to be assured that it has nothing to do with political necessity and nothing to do with any estimate made yesterday or the day before of the voting strength in this House.
The Opposition tabled the motion for two reasons. The first was our belief in the justice of the teachers' case. The second was our conviction that a sign had to be given to the teachers that their interests were not constantly sacrificed and that their wishes were not constantly and invariably ignored. Therefore, we believe that this debate is, must

and should be to a large degree about the morale of the teaching profession.
At this moment many teachers relieve that society totally fails to recognise and understand the importance and difficulty of the job that they are doing. That feeling is deeply reflected in their reaction to the proposals for reorganising their superannuation scheme. Sixteen unions have come together—a virtually unique occasion—to demonstrate their deep concern about the policy that the Minister proposed to adopt until today. That is an indication of the strength of the teachers' feelings when considered against the size of benefit with which the argument is concerned.
After all, the dispute between the teachers and their employers is about an adjustment to their salaries which will produce, for a teacher earning £2,000 a year, a gross increase in salary of about £15. In net terms it is £9 or £10 a year for most teachers.

Mr. J. C. Jennings: Is that salary or pension?

Mr. Hattersley: Salary. Very few teachers can look forward to a pension of £2,000 a year. It is a gross increase of £15 on a salary of £2,000 a year. For most teachers that means taking home an extra £9 or £10 over the entire 52-week period.
Teachers have reacted with great strength and passion to what they believe to be the injustice of the original proposals. The strength of their feeling is totally disproportionate to the size of their possible financial gain. This for them has become a matter not only of principle but of respect.
In view of those two matters it is absolutely right and proper that the Government should have accepted their case, which I understand will add about £7½ million a year to the total local authority liability- In addition, they will gain in the relationship which will develop between the authorities and their teachers. I must therefore ask the Secretary of State, why was it not possible to spend that £7½ million to make the £15 on £2,000 a year available to the teachers in June or July of this year when it first became an issue? Had that been possible a great deal of ill feeling and disruption would have been avoided.
I turn now to the history of the dispute and to the terms about which we now do not argue today. The House will be aware that in June 1972 a joint working party recommended substantial improvements in benefit within the teachers' superannuation scheme. The level of contribution necessary to support the increased benefits was accepted by the teachers with great reluctance. It was accepted with reluctance because of their desire for the increased benefits and their belief that they were being asked to pay an unreasonably high share of the total costs of the scheme.
The total costs of the scheme were then believed to be 17·35 per cent. of the total salary bill. After much negotiation, it was agreed, with reluctance, that the teachers should pay 6·75 per cent.—an increase from 6 per cent.—and that the employers should pay 10·60 per cent.—an increase from 8·5 per cent.
The quinquennial valuation revealed that the total costs were not 17·35 per cent. of the salary bill, but 15·4 per cent. The argument therefore revolves around how the 1·95 per cent difference ought to be shared between the teachers and their employers.
The Government's original intention—nobody else's ; no local authority is to be blamed—was that the teachers should receive nothing. That was an extraordinary decision, made even more extraordinary by the bald announcement of it without consultation with the unions, and made yet more extraordinary by their complete reversal of it today or yesterday.
After that initial decision there was agreement that a saving of 0·15 per cent. should be offered to the teachers, representing half the saving on one element in the pension fund. The teachers inevitably said that that offer was unacceptable. They believed that they should revert to the 6 per cent. figure. The argument whether they should or should not return to that level of contribution has been the subject of a welter of actuarial argument and counter-argument in refutation.
I understand that the Government's argument—or the argument they once held—basically boiled down to the simple fact that the contributions to and the

funds within the teachers' superannuation scheme had to be looked upon as two distinct and separate parts. The first part was the new entrant contribution which local authorities traditionally believed should be shared equally between the teachers and their employers. The second was the supplementary contribution which met deficits on the scheme as a whole, and was traditionally paid by the employers alone.
Certainly on that second element in the scheme—the supplementary contribution—the unions have always been and will continue to be unwilling to pay any of the deficits. The Government have therefore contended—I will correct myself again ; have contended until today—that any savings on that part of the scheme, since the teachers were not prepared, willing or able to pay any deficits, should benefit the employers, and the employers alone. That contention may be upheld by the sophistries of actuarial calculation, but I do not believe that it stands logical analysis for one moment.
The unions accepted the 6·75 per cent. liability with the greatest reluctance. More important, they accepted it in the belief that the employers would pay 10·6 per cent. They matched the teachers' total contribution with the employers' total contribution. They did not worry or concern themselves to argue how the employers' contribution was to be made up. They simply and, I believe, naturally and obviously, balanced what the teachers were to pay against what the employers were to pay. The basis of the 1972 agreement was that it should be split 10·6 per cent. and 6·75 per cent. That basis has now changed. Therefore, I think it is obvious that, as that basis has changed, the share within the equation which the teachers are required to pay must change. That is why we are so glad that, according to yesterday's decision, it is to change.
That the teachers' contribution should be reduced is especially true when we look at the nature and reasons for the saving on the supplementary contribution. In part, that is the result of the teachers' initiative. It came about because the notional fund which finances the scheme was being credited with unreasonably low interest rates. That situation has at least in part—by no means totally—been remedied. It needs to be remedied a great deal more.
The Financial Times today contains a reproof of successive Governments—not simply that which the right hon. Lady serves or that which I served but also the Government before that in which the right hon. Lady served—when it states that the teachers' superannuation scheme contains
one of the worst examples of pension fund lending money at subsidised rates of interest to the employer's business.
That is certainly true. Some of the notional interest rates were improved four years ago. As a result, there is a saving on the supplementary fund. The teachers are entitled to receive some of the benefits from that saving, not least because in part they contributed towards bringing it about.
In one of those aggressive DES notes, to which I have referred, there is a sentence which reads :
To what extent teachers' associations contributed to these changes … is at best arguable.
With respect, that is not true. The teachers' complaints about the notional interest rates on their funds are very well documented. The National Association of Schoolmasters made a minority report in the working party report on this point. Indeed the approach that was made to the Government about the interest that was notionally credited to the scheme was a joint approach by the teachers' unions and the LEA. There is deep resentment in the profession that the funds which it invests—or notionally invests—do not show a realistic return on capital, and I believe that by making the move which the Government have made today—and which I hope will be confirmed by the right hon. Lady—some of the resentment will be reduced.
Today offers an opportunity to do two other things, one of which I know the right hon. Lady will confirm will be done. I am referring to bringing the teachers' superannuation scheme into line and consistent with comparable schemes. In this welter of actuarial argument which the debate that has lasted since 22nd June has produced, an extraordinary variety of methods have been advanced for comparing one pension scheme with another. In reality there is only one important comparison, and that is between contributions paid and benefits

received in one scheme compared with those in another.
If that is the appropriate and sensible approach, the two comparisons that must be made are between teachers and local government officers in the administative and professional classes, and between them and teachers in the National Health Service. Both those other services now pay 6 per cent. The National Health Service paid 6·75 per cent. until its own quinquennial valuation made it clear that an adjustment was necessary. The figure was then reduced to 6 per cent., which I understand is what the teachers are now to pay. That is a matter of simple justice, but another matter of simple justice must be observed if the teachers' claim is to be satisfied.
National Health Service employees had their 6 per cent. figure backdated to 1st April 1972. I hope that the arrangement which the right hon. Lady is to confirm this afternoon will have the same operative date as that which now applies to National Health Service employees.
I now propose to say one word—and one only—about credits for war service. I accept with great pleasure the right hon. Lady's announcement that war service will be credited for pension purposes. I do that for two reasons : first, because what happens in the Civil Service ought to apply to teachers ; secondly, because it is common practice in the EEC.
Many of us who supported entry into the EEC by voting on 28th October—if the right hon. Lady wants to be precise about it—would not change our view, despite the fact that things have not turned out as well as the Prime Minister promised on that occasion. We believed that one of the good things to come out of Europe was the floating of benefits of one kind or another up to the highest level within the Community. That ought to happen, and war service should be treated as service for pension purposes. I am glad that the right hon. Lady is to announce that that good EEC practice will be reproduced and duplicated in Great Britain from today onwards.
I am glad, too, that as a result of the package which the right hon. Lady is about to announce there may be an end to the growing discontent and disillusionment among teachers. That discontent and disillusionment is bad for teachers,


and equally bad for the children whom they teach. One of the teachers' proper grievances is about to be met. I hope that today heralds a new attitude on the part of the Government about the teachers' other proper grievances, and that there will, therefore, be a good prospect of improving the education service, in which the value and importance of teachers is properly recognised.

4.35 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), I know that teachers are at present harbouring a sense of grievance. This in part may come from a feeling that their lot—certainly in parts of the big cities—has become harder in recent years, while their contribution to our society has been undervalued. New teaching methods are more demanding, discipline is more difficult, and there are special problems of deprived children. The raising of the school leaving age, desirable reform though it is, has added this year to the difficulties of teachers in the secondary schools.
Increases in pay are subject to the code for stage 3 of the counter-inflation programme, and there can be no question of any pay settlement for teachers going beyond the terms of the code. However, paragraphs 156 and 157 of the code leave some scope for improvement in pensions, and I have been seeking for some time ways of helping them in the pensions field. Of course, any arrangements made will have to be subject to the approval of the Pay Board to see that they come within the terms of the code. Naturally, I cannot commit the board, which is independent of the Government.
To take the last section of the motion first, that relating to war service, the Government have great sympathy with those teachers who, having spent their whole working lives since the war in teaching, will receive no pension credit for service in the Armed Forces in the Second World War. Since I received last June a deputation from the National Association of Schoolmasters, which has been taking the lead on this matter among the teachers' associations, I have been examining some of the possibilities in conjunction with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for

Scotland, who have likewise received representations.
There are bound to be great practical difficulties and problems of definition in re-opening at this late stage the question of reckonable service of teachers who trained and joined the profession immediately after the war. The Government think, however, that it should be possible to work out in the teachers' superannuation working party an agreement on the basis that war service in the Armed Forces by a person who entered the teaching profession immediately after the war and who has given continuous service until the retiring age of 60 should be reckonable as to half for pension purposes.
There are, of course, teachers who trained and taught before undertaking war service. Many of them have paid contributions in respect of their war service. So some basis must be found for assessing the contribution for post-war entrants. To do otherwise would create an unacceptable anomaly among teachers. Inevitably, at this distance of time, we shall have to accept that there will be an element of rough justice, but I hope that the working party will be able to find a formula which will cover the majority of teachers affected.

Mr. Michael McGuire: As the right hon. Lady has referred to war service counting for pension purposes, perhaps I may raise the case of one person who has encountered some difficulties.
The man in question qualified as a teacher before the war but, because of the job situation, was unable to obtain a teaching post. He was called up for service and completed nearly six years in the forces. On his release he took up a teaching post, and for a number of years he tried to get the Department—under various Governments—to agree that his war service should count for pension purposes. He was unable to get that agreement until—and I say this in all modesty—I took up his case.
The right hon. Lady spoke about rough justice. As I understand the position from replies that I have received from the Under-Secertary of State, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), those who qualified as teachers before the war but were unable to get a teaching job and returned to the profession after doing their war service are


able to count that service for pension purposes. Does not the right hon. Lady think that the Department should publicise the fact that teachers in that category have no need to go to the length of asking the appropriate local education authority to credit their war service for pension purposes?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. The hon. Member is making a speech. He must not do that.

Mr. McGuire: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have developed my question to such an extent; but would the Minister give a promise that she will seek to use the fullest possible means of publicity to inform teachers that the position is as I have indicated and as has been indicated by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr.Hattersley); namely, that war service counts if the people involved were qualified as teachers?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman fully understands the particular case to which he has referred, but he will also understand that on that brief description I could not possibly take in all the details. I stand precisely on what I have said, which I believe is the point at issue. If the hon. Gentleman will contact me about it I will do my best for that case as I would for any other.
I turn now to the question of teachers' contributions, with which the first two sections of the motion are concerned. The motion is framed, and the teachers have put forward their claim, on the basis that where benefits and the relevant conditions of service of different schemes are substantially the same the employee's contribution also should be the same. In the only comparable local government scheme this is 6 per cent. The Government, and in particular, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I, who are directly responsible, are anxious to be able to do something to help the teachers in their present difficulties, if this can be done within the pay code. I do not, of course, know what the Pay Board would say about a 6 per cent. contribution, but the Government for their part will be ready to consult

the local authorities, with a view to meeting the teachers if they will resume negotiations in the working party on this footing. This will affect the contribution of the employers—that is, the local authorities—and, of course, I cannot speak for them today.
So the Government are ready to accept today's motion in principle on the basis that the first and third sections can form a suitable framework for negotiation if the teachers are ready to resume discussions in the working party. I hope that they will be ready to do so and that they will accept what I have said today as an earnest of the Government's wish to help them wherever we properly can.
I have refrained from giving an actuarial lecture or taking up technical points. The main point, I believe, has been met, and the rest must be done in the working party and then submitted to the Pay Board. I hope that the teachers will accept this in the spirit in which is given by the Government.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong: I begin, unusually, by congratulating the Secretary of State on two grounds, the first being the brevity of her speech. I suggest to other right hon. and hon. Members of the Government Front Bench that if they took more notice of Opposition motions we could have much better speeches. The right hon. Lady's speech is the best I have heard her make since she came to the House.
My second reason for congratulating her is that during the past six months she has done something which I have been trying to do all my life, but at which I have failed. I had never been away from school until I came to the House. I went from school to a college of education, and then back to school. I have been active in union work, but I have always deplored the fact that there have been various voices speaking in the name of teachers. It would be a good thing for the education service, and the children—and certainly for the profession—if the teachers could speak with one voice. It is a sad commentary on the profession generally that representations on its behalf are made by 16 different associations. Apart from my


school activities I have been a chairman of a local authority education committee.
One of the sad things has been all these voices being put forward.
Local authorities, and the Department of Education and Science under all Governments, have used this disunity in the profession to push across their policy when it was not in line with good educational practice. The Secretary of State was very unwise, even today, to suggest that one union was leading another union, and that one union was leading the case. I have heard that kind of thing from representatives of the Department all my life. The Secretary of State has succeeded in uniting the 16 different associations which have spoken with one voice on this matter. They have felt cheated following the negotiations and the terms imposed as a result of the working party, and the decision of the Government and the local authorities.
I have been a member of a local authority and I am now a Member of Parliament. We have led people to believe that we are willing to listen only when a great fuss is created. No one can deny that during the past five years there have been more and more mass lobbies and there has been more and more rushing to the television studios to state a case, as well as more and more militancy among all sections of the community.
I have recently met teachers—who are most reasonable folk, the last in the world one would expect to withdraw their labour, or threaten to do so, folk who would never have dreamed of dissuading young men and women from entering the teaching profession—who were angry because they felt cheated and betrayed on this single issue of pensions. I have seen reasonable men and women become unreasonable overnight because they felt that they had been so badly treated on this issue.
I say to the Secretary of State that we can do what we like about buildings and resources in the education service but if we are to promote the cause of democracy and build the kind of community which she wants, and which I want, we must treat the teaching profession as key workers in the community.
It is a sad commentary that today many schools are almost like railway stations because teachers are moving in

and out so quickly. I have never known teachers to be so unsettled as they are today. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersleyy) in his view that morale is low. Morale is certainly as low as I have known it to be throughout my life. This is a serious matter.
The Secretary of State must remember that the results of the working party were accepted with greatest reluctance. There is no doubt about that. They were accepted by moderate, reasonable folk who, because of the overall benefits, felt that they could commit the teachers to a higher rate of contribution. As the Secretary of State knows, it was a majority vote, and there was a minority report. Where there are minority reports there are often situations in which reasonable people begin to say that unless they are militant they will get nowhere. That is a dangerous situation, particularly in the education service and the teaching profession.
Teachers also feel cheated because of the way in which the scheme is funded, or more precisely, the way in which it is not funded. The Government are fixing the rate of interest and the fund is merely a bookkeeping entry. Teachers feel that if they had had a properly funded scheme it would have ensured that their contributions would not have to rise and that the benefits would compare with those of other public service schemes.
No one can deny that any reasonably invested scheme would earn far more than the notional income allows. If we read the documents dealing with the new pension schemes now coming forward from the Government it will be seen that any well-managed superannuation scheme relies on investment income to carry a large part of the cost burden. The fact that this scheme is not funded causes great resentment throughout the teaching profession. All public servants, particularly teachers, have been harshly affected by incomes policy and counter-inflation measures taken by successive Governments.
We know that teachers are reasonable and moderate folk and have therefore tolerated conditions which have not been tolerated by others who have used their strength in a direct confrontation with the Government. The majority of


teachers do not want a direct confrontation with the local authorities or with the Government. Because the teachers have been harshly affected by these policies, it is wise of the Government to accept our motion.
I have to say to the Minister that over and over again she has given the impression that what is happening in the education service is no responsibility of hers. I put it to her at Question Time recently and she told me that she had no responsibility for the fact that at present children are undergoing part-time education. Teachers have always regarded education as a partnership between the authorities, themselves and the Department. The Minister must take seriously this business of morale in the profession. The teachers have a great contribution to make. They must make it in cooperation with parents, the Department and the authorities. I believe that they are more than ready to do so. I also believe that today the Minister has taken at any rate a first step towards restoring some of that morale.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. J. C. Jennings: I wish to begin by making two personal comments. First, I wish to declare an interest in that I am a teacher Member sponsored by the National Union of Teachers. There are two such hon. Members on the Conservative side of the House and four in a similar position on the benches opposite. It is wise, within the context of this debate, to make clear what are the responsibilities of an NUT-sponsored Member. He or she is expected—and I use the word "expected" instead of "required"—simply to advance the cause of education. He does not have to sign on any dotted line and he follows the dictates of his conscience and of his own party if he wishes. I have done so on a number of occasions when I have violently disagreed with the NUT and followed my own line.

Mr. Cyril Smith: Do you get paid for it?

Mr. Jennings: You should know.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. The hon. Gentleman must address me as a schoolmaster would address a class.

Mr. Jennings: I beg your pardon, Mr. Mallalieu. I should know how to address the Chair. The hon. Gentleman should know very well that there is payment because one of his colleagues was sponsored by the National Association of Schoolmasters and made a personal statement about it a short while ago. If my colleagues question this let me say that party funds benefit from such sponsorship at election times in a particular constituency. The same is true for hon. Members opposite. Let us not quibble or cast innuendos. We are here to advance the cause of education, particularly in this debate.
I am grateful that I have caught your eye so early, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because 18 years ago we had a similar debate when Lord Eccles, then David Eccles, Minister of Education, brought in a superannuation Bill in which he proposed to raise the teacher's contribution from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent. thereby earning the nickname "Mr. 6 per cent." In that debate I spoke strongly against the proposal and voted against my party on a three-line Whip—a traumatic experience then, although I have done it again since.
It is appropriate that in what is almost my last year of serving in Parliament I should once more be involved, in a different fashion, in a teachers' superannuation debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her decision, announced in a brief but admirable speech. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Spark- brook (Mr. Hattersley) who is now absent—

Mr. George Thomas: He is coming back.

Mr. Jennings: He always comes back. The hon. Gentleman asked, "Why the change in heart? Why the U-turn?" There is a good, strong reason. It is that my right hon. Friend has won her fight. Her fight against whom? First of all it was the Treasury.

Mr. Thomas: The same villain.

Mr. Jennings: The right hon. Gentleman should know that far better than I. She has won her battle there, and that is why there is the change. She could not come to the House and say that she intended to try to do this until she was more sure of her ground. The second


battle she had to fight, particularly on the war pensions issue, was against the host of Whitehall Departments who said, "If you do that for teachers you do it for all the rest." She has proved to be wise. She has been imbued with a sense of justice on behalf of the teachers.
I have known for months of her sympathetic attitude towards the teachers on this question of war pensions and other matters. From my own observations there is no question of my right hon. Friend wanting a confrontation with the teachers.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: I am intrigued by the suggestion that the Secretary of State has been fighting a battle against the Treasury and suddenly won yesterday. Did the hon. Gentleman not receive from the Department of Education and Science the complete answer to the teachers' case, issued by the Secretary of State, saying of the teachers,
They cannot, therefore, reasonably contend they have any claim now to any share in the reduction now recommended.
Is it not a fact that some hon. Members opposite simply would not support the Government?

Mr. Jennings: The hon. Gentleman is so naïve, parliamentarily and politically. He must know that while a Minister is performing a holding operation with a problem a facade has to be put up.

Mr. William Hamling: Tell us about the other facades.

Mr. Jennings: Liberal hon. Members would not know that. But right hon. and hon. Members of the Labour Party know quite well that this is true and that it was a holding operation. While my right hon. Friend was preparing the ground and fighting her battle, she could not announce the result until she was sure of it. I take my hat off to her. She is a bonny fighter.
I turn to the question of funding raised by the hon. Member for Durham, Northwest (Mr. Armstrong). I raised this matter in the debate in 1955. I and many other hon. Members have raised it in many subsequent debates. We have a notional fund, which does not exist. A notional interest is paid and notion-ally credited to a notional fund—none of which exists. It is on this so-called

notional but psuedo-actuarial basis that pensions have been reckoned.
Every Government have refused the demands from all sides of the House to fund the pension contributions. It has been a disgrace. I know quite well, as do most hon. Members, that it would be utterly impossible to fund the contributions as far back as when the pension fund was instituted. There is the other anomaly that when the fund was notionally started, the notional interest was 3½ per cent. That continued for some years. Then it became, gradually, 6 per cent., and that continued for some years, still under-valued. Now, thank goodness, it has improved. The latest figure, for the year 1973–74, is 11½ per cent. That is the rate being credited to the notional fund. In 1972–73 it was 9½ per cent., and in 1971–72 it was 8¾ per cent. The position concerning the notional aspect has improved.
The Government, and any right hon. or hon. Members who may form any other Government in the future, should regard it as urgent to look at the funding of contributions at some subsequent date to put the whole scheme on a practical, actuarial, financial basis.
The question of war service for pensions is very difficult. I have been putting one particular case to Ministers over many years. It concerns a man who is now drawing a pension, who went straight into the Army from school at the beginning of the First World War. There was no evidence of intention of his entering the profession, yet he started teaching as soon as he qualified after his war service. That service in the first world war is not counted. I hope that when I send that case again to a Minister, after the working party has looked at the whole question, it will be rectified.
I am highly satisfied with what I have heard this afternoon. Because of my deep respect, regard and affection for my right hon. Friend's ability and character, whatever she has said this afternoon, I tell my teacher colleagues here, in Burton, in the NUT or anywhere that I would have supported the Government tonight if a vote had been taken, and far more so now, because the present Government are worthy of support from hon. Members and particularly from a grateful teaching profession.

5.4 p.m.

Mr. Clement Freud: On a day of hastily rewritten speeches from the Opposition side of the House and U-turns from the Front Bench, performed with the dexterity of advanced driving instructors, I am pleased that my first speech as the Liberal Party spokesman on education should be to support a cause on which the entire House is now agreed—the need to get a better deal for teachers.
As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) pointed out, unison of opinion is not confined to the House but extends to all 16 organisations representing teachers, which shows not only the need for the Government's realignment of opinion but the justness of the decision to which they have come. As the Secretary of State so rightly said, it is essential to appreciate that the more timid and decent are the members of a profession, the more and not the less do they need the support of the Government, and I agree with the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong): teachers feel that an industrial dispute is the last and most foreign action that they would take.
I should like the Minister, in spite of the volte-face, to examine what caused the process. In a nutshell, it was a superannuation scheme that ignored war service and was funded in a way which took no notice of present funding methods, to which the Government contributed a notional contribution and notional interest at a rate which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker), or at least his erstwhile partner, would have shown to be a very long way away from current investment returns.
The teachers felt a deep sense of injustice, and the future of our children's education—indeed, of our own and our parents' education, because there is no age limit now—was vitally affected. Had the teachers asked for a substantial rise in pay—and I would have supported them—they would have had a very just case. But they were asking for a minimal amount of money ; a sum that I worked out at £16 a year and which another hon. Member has made £15 a year. A concession so small that it would take

until phase 17 of Government policy before it was passed.
The teachers were asking for justice. They were asking to be brought into line with other professions, and they felt that it was scandalous that political rather than humane or judicial arguments should have been allowed to have caused such distress to a profession which felt quite genuinely that it had been discriminated against.
Writing to my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) on 24th August this year, the Prime Minister said that it was the policy of local authority that this cost for superannuation should be shared broadly equally by employer and employee. That is not the policy of local authority. The Prime Minister went on to say :
On the other hand, there are the teachers' and the firemen's schemes where that contribution is 6¾ per cent.… The fire and police schemes admittedly give benefits at an earlier age than the other schemes.… There is no case for saying that teachers have been singled out for unfavourable treatment.
If one looks at the superannuation funds for the other professions, one finds that for every £1 that a fireman pays, the local authority pays £2·67. For every £1 the policeman paid, the local authority paid £2·57. While I am talking about the police, it would be good to remember that their war service is not yet taken into consideration for superannuation purposes. Next, for every £1 British Airways personnel paid, the employers paid £2·33. For every £1 National Coal Board employees paid, the employers paid £2·32. Even in the case of National Health Service employees, for every £1 paid by employees the local authority paid £1·63.
What the Government, with their 6¾ per cent., aimed at was £1·33 for every £1 that the teachers pay. If that is not unfavourable treatment I would like to know what it is. I am delighted that the teachers are now to get £1·57 for every £1 they pay. It still seems to me to be far too low, but it is a step in the right direction. It is especially a step in the right direction in view of the vast amount of money which local authorities have made by their notional contribution.
I do not believe that the Minister is actually unsympathetic to teachers, but it has taken a long time for this to come across to the profession. I know that in


my constituency the teachers will now cease to make wax effigies of the right hon. Lady, and with a few more moves on her part to better the teachers' lot, and especially the lot of teachers living in metropolitan areas, who need much more financial assistance than they are getting, I think that the teachers in my constituency will put away the needles which have been in such constant use.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has sat down.

5.12 p.m.

Miss Janet Fookes: I wish to follow my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the brevity of my contribution. However, though it is brief it is none the less sincere. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on the announcements she made this afternoon.
The hon. Member for Durham, Northwest (Mr. Armstrong) spoiled for me what was otherwise a moderate and good speech by suggesting that my right hon. Friend seemed to slide out of responsibilities. No Secretary of State for Education and Science has done more for education, no matter in what sphere one looks. Whether it be in the reform of teacher training, nursery education, primary school building, whatever it be, my right hon. Friend has produced, and is producing, the goods. She has shown herself to be sympathetic to the position of teachers. I am sure that the representatives of teacher associations who have had close dealings with my right hon. Friend will know this, and I hope that they will make that known publicly.
Naturally, I welcome the lowering of the contribution on the teachers' side, but I am particularly pleased about the counting of war service. This is long overdue. I accept that it is only fair and just that those who were involved in war, who were actually under fire and who in a sense lost five or six years of their ordinary working life, should have that service counted. I appreciate that trying to work this out could present difficulties in practice, and I hope that we shall hold the line as regards war service and not find this being extended in an undesirable way.
I am not an actuarial expert and it seems strange to me as a layman that the teachers' superannuation scheme should not be funded properly. Perhaps my hon. Friend who is to wind up the debate will deal with this point.
I know that the announcements made this afternoon will give particular pleasure to teachers in my constituency. I can truthly say that on no other issue have I had such representations from teachers in all the unions concerned. I welcome the united stand, which is very much in contrast with some of the unhappy squabbles that there have been between the unions in the past. This is a particularly happy feature of the present arrangements.
I conclude by again saying how pleased I am with these arrangements. In passing, I cannot forbear wondering why the official Opposition, now so busy espousing this cause, did not do more during their term of office of no fewer than six years.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Barry Jones: I congratulate the hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Miss Fookes), not on her concluding remarks, but on her brevity. Indeed, I think we can all congratulate the Secretary of State on the brevity of her speech and at least on the clarity of its delivery. I shall not believe in her continuing rehabilitation—I thought I detected efforts in this direction—until I see brought before the House measures designed to restore the provision of free milk in primary schools in England and Wales.
It is no exaggeration to say that today is a day of victory for teachers, and particularly for their negotiators, who have managed, it seems, to get at least an indication that in the very near future they will have a signed and sealed victory. I recollect a lobby from the National Association of Schoolmasters and I have had strong representations from a number of branches of the National Union of Teachers, in particular the Deeside and Hawarden branch in my constituency.
At this point I declare an interest. Like the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings), I am a sponsored member of the National Union of Teachers, and I


am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for so effectively laying on the line exactly what sponsorship entails.
In terms of cash this debate is about £16 a year less tax for the average teacher. However, in terms of principle this issue has united the profession in a way which has not been seen for perhaps a generation or more. For once the teachers have organised themselves into a solid, like-thinking phalanx with no thought whatsoever of this being a pushover for the employers. The teachers gained courage because they have been messed about and kept waiting for far too long over the last few months. The teachers are concerned about the way in which the Government's galloping inflation eroded the buying power of teachers' salaries, particularly the salaries of young married teachers. Most of all, teachers have said "Enough is enough", because they are furious at the intransigent stand of the Government over the teachers' London allowance. Therefore, in one way or another this administration has united one of Britain's most disunited professions.
A letter which Mr. Edward Britton, the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, has written to me states that so far reports in the newspapers and elsewhere do not deal with the operative date for the 6 per cent. rate. I wonder whether on behalf of the union I may ask that the operative date for teachers be the same as that for the health services—1st April 1972. In his letter to me the general secretary says :
The circumstances in the Health Services were identical :
Prior to 1 April 1972 the contribution was 6 per cent.
From 1 April 1972 the contribution was increased to 6¾ per cent.
After a Quinquennial Valuation the contribution of the employees reverted to 6 per cent. as from 1 April 1972.
So I should like to ask the Minister to deal with this very important matter when he winds up the debate.
We are right to seek a 6 per cent. rate of contribution, because everyone here will agree that, in a Europe riddled with inflationary economics, superannuation arrangements have an increasingly important bearing on teacher recruitment, and

if we have a better pension system we shall achieve better recruitment, especially in our great cities. We shall also have a better prospect of solving the very serious shortage of specialist teachers in secondary schools in the cities, because I understand that there is now a lack of mathematics teachers, science teachers and teachers of languages and crafts, particularly in those courses leading up to examinations and career opportunities. I hope very much that this point can also be dealt with.
We need the 6 per cent., because we must stop the bleeding away of able and experienced staffs in the big cities. The problem of replacing the experienced teachers is considerable, and better superannuation arrangements will certainly help in that direction.

5.22 p.m.

Mr. R. A. McCrindle: The hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) referred to the resentment of teachers, and on this occasion I must echo that feeling. Certainly, in all the representations from my constituency, the unanimity of approach has never been more obvious than it has been on this subject. Therefore, I particularly welcome the line which the Government have chosen to take in this debate this afternoon, because I should have had considerable difficulty in going the whole way with the Government's position yesterday. Having said that, may I pay my tribute to the Secretary of State for Education and Science? When we look back at the 1970s, we shall perhaps see the right hon. Lady as one of the most underestimated Secretaries of State that this country has ever had.
This has been a very amiable debate, which might not have been expected, so I hope that I shall not develop a sour note. In a way, this debate is artificial in that pensions are only one part of total remuneration. It might have been better and more straightforward of the teachers' organisations, in putting forward these quite legitimate and supportable claims on pensions, if they had recognised that when pension contributions are reduced, total income is increased, no matter how marginally. It might have been better if we had debated, in one form or another, the total remuneration of teachers.
Had the announcement not been made today, there would have been no increase in the percentage contribution of employees between 1972 and 1974; it would have remained at 6·75 per cent. So it would have been difficult for the teachers to sustain the arguments which they were putting forward, unless, on the one hand, there was very considerable injustice and, on the other hand, it was unusual in other occupational pension schemes for reductions to be made.
I can tell the House from my experience, not in education but in pensions, that it is not at all unusual for reductions in contributions to be declared when a surplus has been accumulated in a fund. But, equally, I must say that it is more usual in those circumstances to increase the pensionable benefits. One of my criticisms of the teachers' organisations is that on no occasion when I met them did they put forward that possibility as an alternative. Nevertheless, I find myself in very substantial agreement with what has been said by the teachers' organisations.
If we look no further than the pure equity of the situation, there should be comparability with other similar schemes in both public and private service. I find it difficult to compare directly with other public service schemes, so perhaps I shall be forgiven if I draw a comparison between the teachers' pension scheme and private schemes with which I have been associated.
First, there is no doubt that contributions under a private scheme can come down, though it is more usual to increase benefits. Secondly, 6·75 per cent. would be a relatively high contribution for an employee to make under an occupational pension scheme. Thirdly, the employer's contribution is relatively low under the teachers' scheme, compared with private schemes.
The cause of so much of the heartache is that we have here an unfunded scheme, and I make no apology for possibly devoting the remainder of my speech to this very simple point. In a period when there is some stability of prices, an unfunded scheme is perhaps poor value, but in a time of inflation the benefits can be eroded and the whole effect can be quite catastrophic. I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether she will consider progressive

funding. It is fine if we can now say that we have unanimity. The Government have moved and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook did not press them unduly, although some hon. Members did. There is therefore a temptation to leave the matter there. But if we do that, we shall find that this will not be the last time that we have to discuss this problem. I ask whether some form of progressive funding can now be entertained.
Under the Social Security Act, which was introduced by this Government, the basis of future occupational pensions in this country will be funded schemes with inflation-proof benefits on the basis of steady contributions, and with an employer-employee ratio of about two to one. Therefore, I am sure that funding is the answer to the problem of the teachers' pension scheme. With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, the tendency which I see in the Department of Education and Science, towards as nearly as possible a 50/50 split in contributions between the teacher and the employer, is quickly becoming out of date. If we had a fully funded scheme, then I believe that with a 6 per cent. contribution and no further increase at all in the employer's contribution a man now aged 45 could look forward to a retirement pension of about 10 per cent. more than he could conceivably look forward to under the present arrangements.
This whole matter of teachers' pensions should, if possible, be taken out of the sphere of Government policy—irrespective of the Government in power—and taken out of the phase 3 regulations as far as possible. A leading firm of consulting actuaries should be employed to establish how progressive funding could be commenced. While such a study is being pursued there is no reason why the employer's contribution should increase, and if a way can be found of funding the scheme in an up-to-date way it will not only improve the prospects for teachers' pensions, but, with some little luck, will make it unnecessary to have a debate of this sort in future.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: I must declare an interest. I am not a sponsored Member of any teachers' organisation but I contributed


for many years to the teachers' superannuation scheme, and I hope to live long enough to draw some benefit from those contributions, however meagre the benefit may turn out to be.
I believe that this is a good day for Parliament. It gives the lie to those rather cynical people who proclaim that back-bench Members of Parliament have no influence at all over the all-powerful executive. When I drafted my Early Day Motion a few weeks ago, which is now signed by almost 200 Labour Members of Parliament, calling for a reduction in the teachers' superannuation contribution from 6¾ per cent. to 6 per cent., with at least half war service to be counted for pension purposes, I never expected it to be successful. I doubt whether the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who drew up a similar motion signed by, I believe, 20 Conservative Members of Parliament, expected that to be successful.
There can be no doubt that the teachers have an unanswerable case. I congratulate the teachers' organisations—the National Union of Teachers, the National Association of Schoolmasters, and the Joint Four—on the lucid and forceful way in which they have presented these arguments. I say, as someone who has had some experience of teacher union politics, that it is a great day when the teacher organisations stand shoulder to shoulder and speak with one voice.
I was rather depressed last week when we received from the Department of Education and Science that long document which purported to answer in detail the teachers' case. I say "purported" because it did no such thing. I expected that when we came to the debate today the Secretary of State would trot out all the old familiar arguments about why it was not possible to accede to the teachers' just demands. I am delighted, therefore, that today the Minister has agreed to accept the Opposition motion.
Two theories have been put forward to explain the Government's apparent change of heart. The first, put forward by the hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings), is that the real stumbling block was the Treasury—a not unfamiliar situation when dealing with matters relating to teachers—and that the Secretary of State has won her battle with the

Treasury. If this is so, I am sure she will be the first to admit that her hand was strengthened by the two motions on the Order Paper which showed that there was a real strength of feeling in this House in favour of the arguments put by the teachers.
The second possible explanation is that the Government Chief Whip had counted heads and came to the conclusion that if the Government had opposed our motion he could not guarantee a majority in the Division Lobby. Whichever explanation is correct—it may possibly have been a combination of both reasons—it shows that back-bench Members on both sides of the House retain the ability, when they work together in concert, to influence Government policy. As I said earlier, this is very good for parliamentary democracy.

Mr. McCrindle: On both sides of the House.

Mr. Mitchell: Yes, on both sides of the House. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State will not think me uncharitable if, having accepted the two immediate points at issue, I ask her to go a step further. There is no doubt that the whole of the arrangement for teachers'superannuation is entirely unsatisfactory. I should like the Minister to set up some form of inquiry, whether a Select Committee or a departmental committee, to go into the whole future of the scheme, including the possibility of partial or progressive funding. Many suggestions have been made on how the teachers' superannuation scheme could be improved. We know that it is entirely unsatisfactory at the moment. Let us have all these suggestions thoroughly investigated, and a comprehensive report brought to the House, so that we can discuss them, with legislation possibly to follow. If this is done, I believe it will remove a grievance which teachers have had for almost 50 years.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. S. James A. Hill: This debate has a deflated feeling, for in politics, without an argument there are not many politics. I came here today with an open mind to hear the debate and, as I said to the local association of the National Union of Teachers, it would be up to the power of the debate to sway me into the Government Lobby.


I know that there are several of my back-bench colleagues who were of the same mind.
I do not think that the Labour motion, signed by 200 members of the Labour Party, could possibly have done anything other than reveal the fact that there was nothing to fear. It was the Conservative back-bench Members who, quite rightly, felt, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State felt, that there was injustice in this superannuation scheme, that this scheme with a payment of 6·75 per cent. was unfair and should be brought in line with those of other comparable bodies. The credit for war service is admirable. It is only half to be credited, but this seems to be in line with most of the other schemes.
I am pleased that the hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) mentioned the Community. He is quite right. The pensions and superannuation enjoyed by the professional people in the Community are far higher than we enjoy in this country. We have a long way to go to float upwards to that sort of provision.

Mr. Hattersley: I do not want to get into any more trouble than I am in already, but will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in the Community not only are professional pensions higher but so are the pensions of work people and manual staffs?

Mr. Hill: I can confirm that. This is one of the benefits of the Community, that their pension scales are so much higher than we enjoy in the United Kingdom.
I believe my right hon. Friend said that there would be a form of rough justice in the decisions that will be taken. I hope the justice will not be too rough. There are anomalies which must be dealt with. I have had correspondence With my right hon. Friend in the past and I have always found that she was willing to discuss anomalies.
So much has been said about funding that I am sure there is no need for me to take up any more time of the House on that subject, but I am sure that this is a matter which has to be considered. Back-bench Members on this side of the House are of the opinion that the professional teacher must not feel in any

way that he will be at the bottom of the scale in further pension and superannuation schemes or, indeed, in relation to any funding which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may bring forward in the future.
I thank my right hon. Friend for her decision. Although we have had, as I say, a very deflated debate, we have got harmony between both sides of the House, probably for the first time for some months, and it is all due to my right hon. Friend.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. William Hamling: A retreat by the Government produces harmony. That is marvellous! If only they would retreat from all the other major policies which are discussed in this House from time to time, we might have real harmony in the House.
I shall not pursue the logic of the speech by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) too far. He said that he was not influenced at all by the Labour Party back-bench Members' follow-up motion but he was influenced by the Conservative motion. In other words, he is not interested in the merits of the case ; he is interested in the label on the bottle. If it is Tory, apparently it is fine. I must say that is a singularly unfortunate appreciation of the merits of the teachers' case. That is what we are considering. We are not considering the merits of the Labour Party motion. The Government have accepted it. That is fine. What we are discussing are the merits of the teachers' case.
The hon. Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings), who I am sorry has left the Chamber, and for whom we on these benches have a great affection, for many reasons other than the fact that he is, like myself, a sponsored member of the NUT—

Mr. Hattersley: Another one?

Mr. Hamling: Yes, another one. He said that the Government hitherto have only been maintaining a facade of opposition. I thought that was marvellous—only a facade of opposition. I must say that it has been maintained for a long time, causing a great deal of distress and a great deal of misery—although that perhaps is not quite the right word.


There was a great deal of heart-searching by the teachers.

Mrs. Thatcher: What about your Government?

Mr. Hamling: We happen to be talking about this 6½ per cent. That is what we are discussing. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say "What about your Government?" but she is always saying how much better she is than we are.

Mrs. Thatcher: That is true.

Mr. Hamling: The record shows, in view of the financial burdens that we had to endure and in view of our record of building, which Government did the better job for teachers.
I started teaching a long time ago—in 1930—and to that extent I have another interest to declare. It has taken a Conservative Government to make teachers go on strike—

Mrs. Thatcher: No.

Mr. Hamling: Oh, yes. Never in all my time as a serving teacher did the strike notices go out in my school. I was the NUT correspondent and I should know.

Mr. S. James A. Hill: Times have changed since 1930.

Mr. Hamling: The teachers have become militant because of the Government's hard-hearted attitude. They were never so militant before the right hon. Lady became Secretary of State.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery: Rubbish.

Mr. Hamling: They never came into the Lobby of this House in such an angry mood until the present Secretary of State took over.
Today we have seen the fox lay down and die. A leading parliamentarian once said on another parliamentary occasion :
Look, they have shot our fox".
In this retraction of months of opposition the fox has not been shot by the Secretary of State ; it has laid down and died. It would be interesting to know what is behind the Secretary of State's words. She said that the teachers should now go back to the working party and

that provisions such as paragraphs 1 and 3 of the resolution should term the basis of negotiations. That is my recollection of what she said.
What does that mean in practice? Does it mean that all the teachers' demands will be accepted, or will they simply form the basis of negotiations? I do not want to be a Scrooge at this feast but I am always tempted to look carefully at what the Government offer. Are they saying that they will accept all the terms of the motion, that they fully accept everything in it, or are they saying that it should form a basis of negotiation inside the working party?
I hope that the Under-Secretary will be a little more explicit when he replies to the debate and will tell us what is the Government's policy. I know that it must be difficult for him because he is not the Secretary of State. This matter has been dragging on for a long time. There has been a great deal of private lobbying, a great many deputations and much private discussion and we should pay tribute to the many people inside and outside the House—apart from the Tory recalcitrants—who used their influence in persuading the Secretary of State to change her mind. We should congratulate the trade union leaders in the teaching profession on their part in these discussions. There is no doubt that there has been great concern among the teachers for a long time and that in many ways the profession has reached a crisis point.
When I started teaching we never had the sort of problems which now face the profession. There were large classes—I taught classes of an average size of 55, and that was 35 and 40 years ago. However, we never experienced the other pressures, such as part-time teaching and teacher turnover. In the schools in which I taught we would have people on the staff for five, 10 and 15 years, and they gave the school a degree of permanence. I can remember one man retiring from the staff at a school where I taught. He had been there for 39 years. I would not encourage that because within four months of retirement he had died of boredom.
There have been cases recently where a teacher has the job of checking that every class is covered for registration and assembly. It is terrible that a school with


a comparatively small staff, of say 14 or 15, should be short of two or three teachers regularly week after week. All this bears out how low is the morale of the teaching profession and how great are the pressures upon it. To that extent the concession by the Government to public opinion will do something, even though it is a small gesture, to deal with the difficulties and anxieties.
The Secretary of State said she was powerless over the question of pay because it was a matter for the Pay Board and phase 3. It is not. It is a matter for Government policy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) was correct in saying that the Government should not shuffle off their responsibilities. They have a great responsibility in the wider sphere of the rewards given to public servants in the teaching profession and elsewhere. They must accept that responsibility and not try to pass it off on someone else.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. John E. B. Hill: The speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) was perhaps typical of his teaching days, in that he treated the House with an alternation of a benign mood and a rather severe one when he discussed the record of the respective parties in school building and the development of education. He had not done his homework as well as he should. I hope that he will look into the record in more detail.

Mr. Hamling: I did not start the discussion. The Secretary of State did.

Mr. Hill: The more homework the hon. Gentleman does, the better he will appreciate our contribution to education.
I agree with the hon Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) about a welter of actuarial argument, and I was delighted that he did not want to pursue it. The whole campaign has been characterised by an unusual degree of expertise, chiefly from the two major unions, the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters, which have bombarded hon. Members with the most detailed mathematical argument bearing on the marginal but important subject that we are discussing.

I could not help noting the coincidence of the great attention given to the pension contribution and a claim for a 25 per cent. pay increase, which is not relevant to this debate and falls outside the scope of phase 3. What is important today is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, no doubt responding to the wishes of the whole House, has won her battle with the Treasury to get the superannuation scheme altered in favour of the teachers.
Although there is a great argument about interpretation, the salient facts about the old scheme are that if it were interpreted strictly, at any rate by Government actuaries and the Treasury, any margin up or down was likely to fall upon the employers, and the notional fund was credited with the prevaling rate of interest on Government long-term securities, as judged by the Government Actuary. Clearly, in that situation it is open to anyone to call in expert evidence and put forward different calculations.
My right hon. Friend was always in the difficulty that the Government Actuary is an independent person, like a district valuer. He will make his calculations of the scheme, and Ministers and everyone else must accept them as an interpretation of that scheme. I thank my right hon. Friend for winning yet another struggle with the Treasury. It demonstrates the staunchness of her support for the teaching profession as well as for education in general.
In a sense, I am much more interested in the inclusion of war service, which was previously a sad omission for many people, exemplified as never before in the Adjournment debate answered by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary earlier in the month. That was about someone who had gone straight into the Services, having come from Australia to this country to teach, and who found that there was no question of interruption because he had never started. The rule that a teacher had either to have started teaching or to have been admitted to a college of education in order to qualify was too narrow.
I am glad that war service is being included, because on the whole teachers with war service are better teachers. They have had a wider experience of the world, under difficult conditions, and that


width of experience broadens their teaching ability.
The one point I wish to contribute to a debate in which most has already been said is that we are in phase 3 and the question of pay is before Burnham and the question of superannuation and other benefits is negotiated separately. At a time when fringe benefits matter so much and, under conditions of phase 3, are taken into an assessment of what pay increases are allowable, it would be better to try to deal with pay, pensions and fringe benefits in the same negotiating body. I hope that the occasion of this change in the pension scheme will allow that suggestion to be seriously considered. It would be much more satisfactory for the whole of the conditions of service and pay to be dealt with as one. It might then be easier to see to what extent teachers were receiving pay, working conditions and living standards comparable with other professions.
We all want teachers to be contented members of the community. More than any other members of the community, they set an example not only to the young but to parents. If they are to be contented in a job that we know is trying and often exasperating, particularly if they are working in schools which await inclusion in an improvement programme, it is essential that they should not have a sense of injustice.
They had a sense of injustice. I am not sure that it was wholly well founded. There are obvious misconceptions in letters I have received, some of which talk of fraud and so on. Such things were probably written in the heat of the moment. We need a contented teaching profession, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for taking this step to make it so.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: I admire the nerve of the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. John E. B. Hill) in talking about school building in the middle of a period when there is a complete freeze on approvals of any school building.
I congratulate the Secretary of State on two matters. The first is that her policy until yesterday united the teaching profession.

She is probably the only person ever to achieve that. Secondly, I congratulate her on her acceptance of the teachers' argument and thus becoming more deserving of congratulations. Perhaps I should also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on uniting the House by his motion.
I, too, declare an interest. I am not a sponsored member of any teachers' trade union, but for 20 years I paid in real contributions to the hypothetical fund. I do not know where that money is, but I presume that some will come back one day. I must also declare an interest in that I shall benefit from the decision on war service, which will result in a considerable increase in my pension.
However, I see difficulties in implementing the war service provision. I doubt whether the teachers' unions would have gone to town on it so much if it had not already been granted to other public employees. As an example of the difficulties, I was in another superannuated occupation before I entered teaching, and that occupation went on nominally through the war. But I am sure the working party will overcome the difficulties.
I welcome the Minister's other decision. The amount involved is not much. The sum of £15 or £16 is probably £10 when tax is deducted. But the teachers were more incensed about the issue than about any salary negotiations or anything else I have ever known. They felt that they had been conned. By the use of certain statistics and as a result of negotiations it was agreed that their contributions should be roughly 40 per cent. After the use of further hypothetical statistics they were asked for a far greater proportion than 40 per cent.
The right hon. Lady has rightly understood that feelings in the teaching profession are not as they should be. Teaching, since I left the profession six years ago, has become a much more difficult job. That may well represent a part of the feeling. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James A. Hill) took some of the credit for the right hon. Lady's decision to change her mind and to accept the teachers' case. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test would have made a more effective contribution if he had signed the motion which other


Conservative back benchers signed which urged that such action should be taken.
If the whole system is being examined, not only the possibility of funding should be considered. Hypothetical funding can be all right if the true rates of interest are taken into account and not the rates which were in operation years ago. It might even be possible to consider a pay-as-you-go scheme. I do not know the figures, but it may well be that the income from teachers' and local authorities' contributions represents a better return each year to the teacher pensions than does any other scheme at present.
We must examine whether the various Government Departments should be responsible for their own pension schemes. At the moment the Department of Education and Science is responsible for teachers' pensions and the Department of Health and Social Security is responsible for National Insurance pensions. Ministry of Defence pensions and National Health pensions. It would be helpful if the Department of Health and Social Security became responsible for all public service pensions. If that were so, perhaps we would not get the kind of reports sent out which were distributed to Conservative hon. Members last week. I am sure that the assembling of such expertise in one Department would lead to recognition of the need for better relations and to the equalisation of schemes.
The decision which has been made was made very late. Most of us heard about it at ten o'clock last night. Earlier in the day the final meeting on the rate support grant negotiations took place. I wonder whether the local authorities were aware of the Government's decision when that meeting took place? I wonder whether they had to bear in mind that they will have to find an additional £7½ million when the rate support grant is known? Of course, we shall not know the figures for about a couple of weeks. I am sure that is a matter in which the local authorities will be interested.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will take up the point which has been mentioned by some hon. Members—namely, whether the 6 per cent. will be back-dated to April 1972.

6.4 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: I apologise to the Secretary of State and to

Mr. Deputy Speaker for previously having put a lengthy question to the right hon. Lady, which I put because I did not think that I would have the pleasure of contributing to the debate. There are so many interested parties who I thought would want to contribute. I must, like almost every other hon. Member, declare an interest. I am a sponsored member of the National Union of Mineworkers. I think that I am the only non-teacher from the Labour Party who has spoken. I apologise to the right hon. Lady for the length of my question. To use an inelegant phrase, I am sure that it caught her on one leg.
I welcome the right hon. Lady's statement on two accounts. First, it was good news. I know nothing about the argument which the teaching profession has had with her since 1972 about contributions. I know only what I have been told by a variety of interested unions. I thought that there were only two unions interested in teaching, but it seems that there are nearly a score. I have received many letters about the matter. Most hon. Members, if they are honest, will say that they welcome receiving individual letters rather more than receiving circulars. I have received many good-natured letters from teachers in my constituency and they have put me in the picture.
I always like to hear Ministers giving good news. I do not mind whether they are Tory or Labour Ministers. It must be a joy to them to be able to give such news, and I welcome hearing it. Secondly, I congratulate the right hon. Lady on the shortness of her speech. My right hon. and hon. Friends who occupy shadow positions should also be admirably brief. On these two accounts I give the right hon. Lady ten out of ten.
The matter which I raised earlier with the right hon. Lady—I admit that I did so at some length—is important. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will deal with it. I do not ask him to do so at great length. The teacher concerned entered a teaching college and qualified before the war. Because of the job situation he was unable to obtain a permanent post. He had to get part-time teaching posts and odd jobs outside the profession which came along. He


was called up and did five or six years in the forces. Immediately after being demobbed he obtained a teaching position. He has remained in it ever since—namely, 27 years.
The matter has been settled in that I have received a letter from the Under-Secretary of State which says that it has been settled. Proof had to be obtained that his war service was credited for pensionable purposes. His union organiser and the local authority officer responsible for recording pension service, said, "No, it does not qualify." The Department had also previously said that it did not qualify.
The letter which I received from the Under-Secretary of State said that such a case qualifies. This is a totally different case from those which I have heard put forward, and which I welcome, about those who joined the teaching profession after war service. The Minister's reply is that the kind of service to which I have referred in fact qualifies. When I told the teacher concerned the good news he told his regional organiser of the NUT. The organiser said, "They seem to be treating these queries about entitlement on a one-off basis." He meant that the Department relied on individuals to make their inquiries.
I want an assurance that the maximum publicity will be given to teachers who qualify, similarly to the case quoted. That is the main point which I wish to get on the record.

6.9 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): In the absence of any contribution from the Opposition Front Bench. I seem to be the best "winder-upper" which the House has.
The important fact which has emerged from the debate, and its central core, was made clear at the beginning of the debate when my right hon. Friend announced that, subject to the counter-inflation code, the Government are prepared to meet in principle the teachers' case on their current grievances concerning pensions—namely, the 6 per cent. contribution and the question of war service, half of which she wishes to be taken into account for pension purposes. War service means

war service. The phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Merton and Mor-den (Miss Fookes) was "under fire". War service does not mean national service as such.
This debate has been characterised not by polemic but by thoughtful contributions from both sides of the House. I have nothing against polemic in its place, but it is nice occasionally to get away from it and to be able to have a reasonable discussion rather than one in which one has to defend an indefensible position as best one can. I think we all suffer equally at different times.
The hon. Member for Flint, East (Mr. Barry Jones) said that it was a day of victory—I think he said a day of victory for the teachers. It is a day of victory, certainly, for liberality and common sense, and it should never be a term of reproach to anyone in this House when a Government give way to pressure of public opinion and to a case that is well argued and well presented. This was the point made by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire).
I want to deal first with the point the hon. Member for Ince raised. We will certainly do our best to give publicity to whatever arrangements emerge from these discussions and also to the current arrangements for teachers' pensions. We would welcome there being wider knowledge of these facts.
I want to deal next with the important question raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and, in the latter part of the debate, by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks) concerning the date of operation of the proposals I have mentioned. Will this reduction in contributions be back-dated or not? The answer cannot be categoric. The National Health Service reduction in contributions, I am informed, did not go back to 1st April 1972, but to a then current date. We cannot be categoric about this because we can only accept this policy in principle. It has to be discussed in the working party. It has to be agreed by the local authorities, and it has, of course, to be subject to the decision of the Pay Board. But at this point I can say this, no more and no less : that the Government will be open to representations as to the date at which it should be brought into operation.
Credit for this happy outcome has been claimed by many. Whenever there is a victory there are many claimants for the credit, but when there are disasters the flight from responsibility is equally rapid. We have heard claims made by the National Union of Teachers, which has been more than adequately represented here today. Does the National Association of Schoolmasters have any sponsored Members? I would say about the NAS that it took a leading part in this campaign and individual Members on both sides of the House also have claim to a certain amount of credit.
In fact, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) that a great deal of credit goes to the Secretary of State herself who has, as he so graphically put it, consistently championed the teachers' cause. I would not use quite the same terminology as he did. He had a scenario in which St. George and the dragon had been replaced by St. Margaret and the dragon. It is not that I object to my right hon. Friend's canonisation, but it would be hardly suitable for me, speaking from the Government Front Bench, to cast my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the role of demon king.
But what I think this matter has shown to the House and to the teaching profession is something which perhaps has not been as fully realised as it should have been—that in the Secretary of State the teachers have a consistent champion. It is an important rôle for any Secretary of State to represent the interests of the teachers. In a sense, the Secretary of State is the head of the teaching profession as well as the head of the Department.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Sparkbrook. I do not think I have done that in the House before.

Mr. Hamling: It is a first time for the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: It is a day of firsts for many. I think that the contribution of the hon. Member for Sparkbrook contributed considerably to the irenic mood of the debate and to the harmony which will, I hope, prevail until I have finished my remarks.
This was not a sudden decision. The hon. Member for Sparkbrook asked, quite

reasonably, for an explanation of the change of policy. It was not sudden in the sense of a decision reached with no previous contemplation or thought.
My right hon. Friend, since the meeting she had in June with the NAS, when it represented its point of view both on war service and on the contributions to the pension fund, has been considering these questions. They have been a matter of constant discussion within the Department and amongst Ministers, and when I spoke in the Adjournment debate on 12th November on war service I attempted, without committing my right hon. Friend, to indicate that things were moving at that point in a direction favourable and sympathetic to the teachers' claims in relation to pension for war service. That point was acknowledged fully by the hon. Member for Sparkbrook.
I want to turn now to the question of funding, because it has entered into the debate and has not been disposed of by the decision announced today. It is inevitable that, in any discussion of teachers' pensions, the basic question of the scheme's present financial basis should arise and that we should have pleas for a change to an actual fund. It was touched on by the hon. Member for Sparkbrook but other hon. Members pursued it in greater depth—the hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong), my hon. Friend the Member for Merton and Morden, my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle), my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill), and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell).
The notional fund, like the House of Lords, is something which I do not think we would have invented today if we were starting afresh. It is something which we have inherited. We are operating a scheme which has existed on its present financial basis for about 50 years. Whether our predecessors of 50 years ago were wise or right to opt for the basis of notional funding which we now have is beside the point. I have no doubt that they acted in the genuine belief that they were doing their best for the teachers. But the economic and financial situation generally then was different from what it is now. The important fact that we have to deal with is that a notional fund was instituted. The Government have done no


more than administer the scheme in accordance with the will of Parliament as ex-presed in the various teachers' superannuation Acts.
There has been some criticisms of the notional interest rates which have been in operation as being out of accord with current realities. If we look at the rates, we see that they are not unreasonable, In 1971–72 the figure was 8¾ per cent., in 1972–73 9½ per cent. and in 1973–74 11½ per cent. We are convinced that after such a long period it would be totally impracticable to change to an actual fund.
The most I can say in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay is not that we should have an independent inquiry but that the whole question can be looked at in the next general review of pension arrangements for teachers. We must remember that we are dealing with what by any standards is a large superannuation scheme, with a membership of well over 500,000 teachers. The Government must also have regard to the possibility that a change of this nature in the teachers' scheme might well have to be followed by changes in other public service schemes which are run on the basis of notional funding or on a pay-as-you-go foundation. The schemes for the Armed Forces also come into this matter. These are all large schemes and their financies have over the many years they have been running inevitably formed an inextricable part of the Government's whole financial structure. Therefore, the cost to the Exchequer of changing from a notional to a funded basis would be a change involving the expenditure of funds amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
I am aware that income from contributions has so far exceeded expenditure on benefits. We do not attempt to deny that that is a fact, but it is the whole purpose of a funded scheme, whether the fund be actual or notional, to build up sufficient assets to meet any liabilities that may be extant at any time. Credit balances of a similar magnitude would already have accrued in an actual funded scheme. These balances are no more than a measure of the Government's liabilities in respect of benefits.
Implicit in the notional funding arrangements is the Government guaranteeing to pay these benefits in any circumstances.

This may seem of little value at the moment when investment in equities, despite temporary setbacks, is still buoyant, but in pension fund matters one must take a very long-term view. The time could come when that guarantee could be of immense value. It is a guarantee backed by the full powers of the State and a guarantee over liabilities which amounts to over £4,000 million.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: When was the last time when this guarantee was of great value?

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was looking at the situation not in the past but in the future. There must have been some periods in the 1930s when equities were less buoyant than they are now, when the actual existence of that guarantee was of value.
Furthermore, this carries with it a Government undertaking to pay the not inconsiderable costs of pensions increase equivalent to an addition of well over 2 per cent. to the contribution rate which would no longer be forthcoming in any change to an actual fund. The cost of pensions increase would then have to be made either by the fund or, if it were unable to do so, by employers. If there were an actual fund teachers would pay the same contributions as they do now since that contribution is part of the new entrant contribution which in turn is determined on an assumption of an actual fund with average performance. However, the teachers, in common with other taxpayers, in addition to paying extra by way of taxes, would have to make good the lack of superannuation contributions going into the Exchequer. The question of the effect on teachers is, in the Government's view, the overriding consideration. Actual funding would not lead to increased benefits since the level of benefit is prescribed by the Government for the public service as a whole and of itself would not result in a reduction in teachers' contribution since that contribution is itself related to the new entrant contribution.
Education is now a community. That is something that we have tended to lose sight of because of the fierceness of the controversies in which we have recently been involved, but in the end everyone in the education world is in his own way working for the same ends. Ministers,


Members of Parliament, teachers, education correspondents—and I place these in the order of ecclesiastical precedence, with the greatest at the end—all are involved in this educational cause. It is extremely important that at certain moments, such as the present, we should stress this point because it is a period when we have growing up not a pro-education lobby but an anti-education lobby. If those concerned with education are too unmeasured in their criticisms, the final casualty will not be any particular individual but the cause of education itself.
Teachers face grave financial problems, as the hon. Member for Sparkbrook pointed out. This is not a political point, much less a party political point. It is a social point. I would not go as far as the hon. Gentleman when he said that the morale of the teaching profession is lower now than at any other time this century, but undoubtedly teachers are slipping in relation to other professions and other workers.
The Secretary of State and I do not wish to see the teaching profession get into a position where it is in a situation of permanent confrontation either with the Government or with society, feeling that society is hostile to the legitimate claims of the teaching profession. I do not want to see that happen with students, much less do I want to see it happen with teachers.
We cannot solve a vast problem of that kind in a short debate such as this, but we have established a principle in this debate—and that is that, subject to the Pay Board's decision, the Government back the principle that the teachers' organisations have unanimously put forward on two important issues in relation to pensions. That is certainly something to be considered and it is something which I hope we can build on. I believe that it is evidence of the Government's concern in general and of the Secretary of State's concern in particular for the welfare of the teaching profession.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, noting the reduction in the costs of the teachers' superannuation scheme revealed by the 1971 Quinquennial Valuation, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to reduce the contribution paid by teachers to their superannuation scheme to 6 per cent., thus

bringing their scheme into line with practice in most of the public service; to support a return to the ratio of costs sharing between the teachers and the local education authorities agreed by their representatives in the Working Party in 1972 ; and to allow half of all teachers' war service to be credited for pension entitlement as is the practice in the Civil Service.

Orders of the Day — CHILE

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) to move the motion, I must inform the House that I have not selected the amendment.

6.28 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: I beg to move,
That this House deeply deplores the armed overthrow of democracy in Chile, and condemns the continuing murder, torture and imprisonments carried out by the military junta ; regrets the hasty recognition of the new régime by Her Majesty's Government; and, bearing in mind the strength of feeling in Great Britain, now condemns the refusal of the Government to offer refuge in its Embassy in Santiago to those in danger of their lives, in sharp and deplorable contrast to other Western European embassies, and calls on the Foreign Secretary to issue fresh instructions to our Ambassador, to press for the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to executions, to prevent any sale of arms from Great Britain to the junta, to ensure that refuge in Great Britain is provided for Chileans who seek it, and to withhold future aid and credits from the present Chilean régime; and to use his influence to ensure that World Bank and IMF assistance is also withheld.
It is now 11 weeks since the day of the military coup in Chile, since President Salvador Allende was murdered, since the death of democracy in Chile, since the murders and tortures and imprisonments and terror in Chile began.
I want first to deal with the background facts of the Chilean situation. I know that it is not our normal practice to comment unduly on the internal affairs of another country. But it is impossible to understand the feelings of Opposition Members and, I believe, of many people in the country about the matters which we raise in our motion without a little understanding of the background in Chile.
As we know and regret, Latin America is a very troubled continent of military dictatorships. It is a continent of acute contrasts of wealth and desperate poverty. In a way, one sees the contrasts more clearly in Latin America because development has taken place to a limited


extent. These countries are not as poor as those of Asia or Africa. Many of the ordinary people, workers and peasants, in the countries of Latin America could have a reasonable subsistence standard of living if the existing national incomes of those countries were spread more evenly.
Chile is like the rest of Latin America in having these contrasts of wealth and poverty, though it is unlike them in having had traditionally for 140 years the longest established democracy in Latin America which has only briefly been disturbed during the whole of that period. As those of us who know Chile a little are aware, among those traditions are three which were savaged by the coup of 11th September.
The first was the Chilean tradition of non-violence. I remember being told by many friends in Santiago that the rate of violent crime in Santiago was very low, that theirs was not a country of violent people, that there was an attitude towards violence which deeply deplored it, and that they were extremely proud of this but took it for granted. That tradition has been savaged.
The second tradition was that the armed forces in Chile were always correctly neutral and could be relied upon to protect the constitutionally elected Government of the day and to uphold its rule of law. That tradition too has been savaged.
There was a third tradition which was a tradition of very close attachment to Britain and the British people. I believe that the Minister of State knows Chile, but it may seem strange to those who are less familiar with the country that, for all sorts of historical reasons, Chileans feel themselves almost closer to the British people than to any other people in Europe. Naturally they share with Spain a language and the background of Spanish imperialism, but with that exception Britain is the country to which they feel closest. In the past 11 weeks, as a result of the behaviour of the British Government, I am afraid that that tradition of closeness between the people of Chile and the people of Britain has also been savaged.
I should like to consider how that has occurred. The democratic Government

which was elected in Chile three years ago was a Socialist Government. One woud not expect right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative side to approve or admire the basis upon which it was moving forward in Chile any more than one would expect them to approve or admire the policies put forward by the Opposition on matters facing our own country.
The Popular Unity Government was quite unique in Socialist terms. It was much more than a mere alliance of parties. It was an integrated movement in which a number of Socialist parties were taking part in government. They included Socialists, Communists and Radicals. I remind the House that the Radical Party of Chile is one of the oldest democratic parties in the country. It has direct and close links with the British Labour Party and, therefore, with the British Labour movement. It is a co-affiliate of ours in the Socialist International, which is the body which brings together the democratic Socialist parties of Europe and of the rest of the world.
Our links with the Radical Party are so close that the Socialist International and some of us from the national executive of the British Labour Party went last February to Chile, where we held a special meeting in Santiago of the Bureau of the Socialist International, and we published statements there to offer very deliberate assistance to Popular Unity during the period of the elections which were just beginning. That is the depth of our links with the Radical Party, which was one of the elements, and, although small, nevertheless an important element, in the Popular Unity Government.
It was a Government in which, oddly enough, the Communists were the moderate realists and the Socialists were, I suppose, the idealists in a hurry. It was a Government with a programme which had very much in common with that of the Christian Democrats : the nationalisation of copper and land reform. All these were matters on which there was a shared view between the Christian Democrats—certainly the Left element of them—and the Popular Unity coalition. The programme included proposals to move towards bringing into national ownership the basic resources on which the country depended for its wealth, and land reform changing the distribution and pattern of


ownership of land so that the poor might benefit and the rich become a little less rich. Those are aims which again are shared with most countries and most political parties in Latin America, whether they be Socialist or Conservative.
These are the pragmatic necessities if the Latin American people are to move forward. There was nothing distinctive about those policies of the Popular Unity Government, even though they caused tremendous opposition from outside the country, especially from the United States.
The real crime of Popular Unity in the eyes of the Right was that it planned and carried out a redistribution of income and wealth. That was its crime. That was why there was the polarisation in political terms in Chile over the past two years. That is why there has also been to some extent an equivalent polarisation in Britain in terms of reactions to the coup in Chile. That is why The Times failed to condemn the coup when it first occurred, although it has had second thoughts and now has different things to say. The Washington Post in commenting on the coup expressed itself in terms of such condemnation that it has been called by one of the newspapers of the junta in Santiago "the Washington Pravda". The Times has expressed itself in reaction to the coup in such a way that it could be perfectly truly called "the London Mercurio".
The real crime of Popular Unity was that the poor were becoming less poor and the rich were becoming less rich. It was daring to succeed within a democratic framework in moving forward in this direction. It was building up electoral support, as it did in the elections of last March, much to the surprise of the Right. This was all against a background of the most acute economic problems—I mince no words here—created mainly by the deliberate actions of the United States, by the deliberate actions of American firms, by the actions of the World Bank and to some extent by the actions of other countries, including Britain, as I hope to show presently.
That was the background of a democratically elected Government operating within the constitution against the economic troubles and the strikes by the

middle class during the summer, the attempted coup, finally the successful coup on 11 th September, and the consequences of violence, death, arrest and torture.
Let us clearly establish the facts regarding what has happened in Chile according to the best reports we can discover. These are rarely from the British Press but are usually from Le Monde and other foreign papers which have been much fuller than any British newspaper in their reporting of events in Chile. Therefore, let us establish what the situation has been since 11th September, because it is against the background of these facts that we must make our judgment whether the British Government have behaved in a tolerable or an intolerable way.
There are a number of estimates, which vary slightly, of the numbers of people who have been killed or imprisoned. United Nations and other estimates put the figure at 30,000 people killed or imprisoned. A working party of Chilean and foreign lawyers recently estimated that there are now 20,000 people in prison.
In terms of deaths, hon. Members will probably know that Newsweek, which could hardly be said to be a radical revolutionary newspaper, states that in one mortuary in Santiago alone in the first 10 days after the coup its reporters counted 2,776 bodies of people killed by the junta. The junta itself admits that 3,500 people are still in detention in prison. Le Monde reports that last Friday alone 100 more people were arrested.
Amnesty International has had an investigating team in Chile in the last few weeks. I understand that it will be presenting its report before very long. No doubt a copy will go to the British Government, so they will be able to see the current estimate of that respected body. Some estimates were up to 30,000 people murdered and imprisoned and of 20,000 still held in prison.
Amongst those are many individuals who have been brought to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself and of those in this country who are concerned about the position of men and women in Chile. I cannot mention more than a fraction of the numbers of people


within our own personal knowledge. There are too many. I will mention just a few.
Claudio Jimieno and Jaimé Banios, a sociologist and an economist, were both captured in the Moneda on the day the coup took place. Nothing has been heard of them since. They were professional advisers to President Allende. One is still a registered student at the London School of Economics according to the Senate of London University. We do not know what has happened to them. They are but two amongst the hundreds and thousands who have simply disappeared and whose wives and relatives do not know what has happened to them.
One man, about whose death we know all too much, was Victor Jara, a folk singer who was very popular in Chile. His wife, who is English, was able to return to this country a few weeks ago. Victor Jara was a known Socialist and many of his songs were Socialist songs. He was captured during the first day or two of the coup and taken to the National Stadium, which was then full of other people, workers and political activists of various kinds. In the National Stadium he sang with his guitar to the other prisoners. First the junta broke his hands, then his back, and then shot him dead. His wife saw his body.
Last week, again according to Le Monde, Calama David Miranda, who was the Secretary-General of the Federation of Mineworkers, was shot in prison, having been sentenced to several years' imprisonment. Apparently a sentence of imprisonment is no protection of one's life in Chile. The soldiers went into the prison and shot him there.
Luis Corvalan on whose behalf the Secretary-General of the Chilean Communist Party, the British Labour Party and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition sent messages when he was in danger of being shot, at the time of our conference, has been in prison ever since and is expected to come before a military tribunal at any time. We do not know what will happen to him.
Ministers in the Allende Government, whom I know, are in refuge in embassies. Nobody knows what will happen to them. The leaders of the Radical Party—our own colleagues and friends—are imprisoned

in Dawson Island. Every person who was my friend in Chile is now either dead or imprisoned. That is an indication of the scale of the situation.
I do not want to go into detail about the torture that has taken place. Le Monde carries first-hand accounts and innumerable witnesses can testify to the beatings, the electrical torture and all the horrors that we have ever read about torture. I merely refer hon. Members to Le Monde of 16th October which refers to a team of three—the Secretary-General of the International Movement of Catholic Jurists, the Secretary-General of the International Federation for the Rights of Man and the Secretary of the International Association of Democratic Jurists—which has returned from Chile and said that in its views the practices of torture and executions are so systematic that they approach the United Nations definition of genocide. That is the view of three distinguished lawyers. The evidence is too widespread to go into in any detail.
That is the factual background to the Chilean situation against which we must exercise our judgment of the way the British Government have conducted their affairs in and towards Chile in the last few months.
I turn now to the question of aid and credits, to which we refer in our motion. We ask the Government to withhold future aid and credits from the present Chilean regime and we ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to use his influence to ensure that World Bank and International Monetary Fund assistance is also withheld.
I should like primarily to refer to credits, but first I will say a brief word about aid. We give a little aid to Chile—mainly to Chilean students in Britain. However, we also give a little technical aid in Chile. I hope that through our aid programme we shall continue to support Chilean students in Britain even though the military regime may not want us to do so.
I have two letters, which I will give to the Minister of State at the end of the debate, concerning two Chilean students whose support from Chile has now been withdrawn and who will therefore need to be supported by aid from elsewhere. In


my view, aid to them would be a correct use of British aid funds.
The question is essentially one of credit and of our attitude to Chilean debt. Much will be made of the Chilean debt situation. I have no doubt that the Minister has a thick dossier on the problems that Chile has been facing in making interest payments on and paying off the capital debt that has been incurred there. We should clearly understand that in this respect Chile is no different from other Latin American countries. They have all been relying on foreign help—mainly United States and World Bank help—to finance their capital and interest on debt repayments.
They all borrowed very heavily when rates of interest were high during the 'fifties and early 'sixties, and now that the debts have to be paid most Latin American countries are finding that anything between 15 per cent. and 25 per cent. of their foreign exchange earnings is needed to deal with their debt position. Chile was no exception. What Chile had to face was that the previous Frei Government had contracted a number of large short-term debts and, as she was unable under Allende to borrow the money, it is by definition a fact that the debt problem was one which President Allende inherited from previous Governments.
What was our rôle in providing credit? Needing, as it desperately did, more credit and financial help, Chile was told in November 1971 that the one meaningful form of credit that Britain offered—Export Credits Guarantee Department medium-term credit—was to be stopped and that there was to be extended credit up to £250,000 only. In May 1972 that was further restricted and the ECGD guarantee was limited to short-term cover. It was part of what has been called in the United States the invisible blockade of the Chilean economy. The United States stopped all development aid in 1970 and there was no help from the World Bank throughout the period of the Popular Unity Government.
Next, there were western attitudes on debt renegotiation. The Paris Club talks that were scheduled for the spring were postponed. It was the case that unless the Paris Club talks were held in the spring and the debt was successfully renegotiated, as it had been the previous

year when the Chileans had paid everything that was due from them, 40 per cent. of the foreign exchange earnings of Chile would go in debt servicing. Against that background, the Paris Club talks were postponed and there was no medium-term credit from Britain.
Moreover, the background included ITT, the copper situation as between the United States and Chile, and the continuation of American supplies of arms—not aid—particularly to the Chilean Navy. Joint American-Chilean naval exercises were taking place on the clay of the coup. There is a first-hand account that there were 10 or 12 United States ships at Quito on 10th September, the day before the coup. Admissions have been made—one reads this not in British papers but in Le Monde—before the Committee on Inter-American Affairs of the House of Representatives in Washington by the Director of the CIA and one of his officials. They implicitly
admit the participation of their agency in the plan of economic sabotage in Chile under the popular junta, a plan destined to incite the military to intervene directly to put an end to chaos".
The CIA has admitted its involvement, so we do not need to speculate any further. The admission has been made before a Committee of the House of Representatives.
The Senate in Washington has adopted a resolution which demands that President Nixon stops all aid to Chile for as lon6/5/2006illion dollars to the new régime.
What are the British Government proposing to do now? An IMF mission arrived in Chile earlier this month. It is assumed that it will give either the red or the green light to the provision of credit. We do not know what the colour will be. The Paris Club talks are to be resumed within a few days, and it is said that a strong delegation is coming to Paris from the military régime in Chile. It is understood that it will seek from the IMF a standby credit of 75 million dollars.
The Government's argument for stopping medium-term credit and World Bank assistance was the deteriorating state of the Chilean economy, but the economic


situation there has deteriorated very much more rapidly since the day of the coup. The junta has announced price rises of between 300 per cent. and 1,000 per cent. The price of bread is four times what it was in September. I remember being told in July by a senator in Chile that in a situation of Poplar Unity "the poor understand best", and I think that the poor are having to understand the junta best, because with the increased prices they are in a terrible situation.
If the Government's argument for not providing aid to Popular Unity was that the economy was in a difficult and deteriorating situation, they can hardly argue now, whatever the IMF says, that the economic situation in Chile is improving so rapidly that they are correct to provide credits. Therefore, if the Government now propose to restore credit, following the reports of the IMF and the Paris Club talks, and if they decide to be more generous about rescheduling debts now that they are dealing with a military régime than they were when dealing with Popular Unity, that will clearly be an act of political support for the junta, and nothing else.
We demand that credit be withheld and that Britain ensures that no help is provided from other agencies. We are powerful enough in the World Bank set-up to do that, particularly as we are one of the largest contributors to the IDA and a major subscriber to the bank. Britain should ensure that World Bank and IMF assistance is not resumed.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: The right hon. Lady's analysis has left us breathless. If what has happened in Chile is the result of massive tension and poverty, how can the tension possibly be reduced by any policy which, at this critical stage, reduces that country's access to foreign resources?

Mrs. Hart: The difficulty here—and it arises in other situations—is that the announced policies of the junta are to make the poor poorer, so there is no chance of any credit or aid that flows into Chile being of any benefit to the poor. Any help that is provided will benefit those who resisted Popular Unity. Under the military junta there is no possibility of the help flowing to the people who matter in Chile. That is the justification

for arguing that credit can only be a gesture of political support.
I add one further point for the record. I have not previously referred to this in the House. This is another aspect of the Government's complicity in what is called the invisible blockade.

Mr. William Molloy: Has my right hon. Friend taken cognisance of the remarks of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd)? The essence of what he said is that if underdeveloped countries are the subject of a savage, disgusting military coup they will get all the aid they want.

Mrs. Hart: We shall study the hon. Gentleman's remarks in HANSARD, but I have dealt with one of the points made by him.
This is another aspect of what I believe to have been the Government's complicity in the invisible blockade. I have with me some notes which I made last February during a discussion lasting an hour and a half with Senor Almeyda, the Foreign Minister of Popular Unity, at La Moneda, which has now been destroyed. On my return to the United Kingdom I conveyed to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs the Foreign Minister's request that the British Government should seek to mediate in the dispute about copper compensation between the American and the Chilean Governments.
A number of possibilities for a compromise solution were opening up at that time, but the problem was that the atmosphere between the Americans and the Chileans was so acute that the discussions could not be held. Almeyda, the Foreign Minister, told me that the one country they thought might possibly assist in mediation was Britain and I was requested to ask the Foreign Secretary whether he would do that. I asked the right hon. Gentleman but as far as I know he did not mediate. I should, however, be happy to hear to the contrary.
The Prime Minister told me in a letter :
I share your hope that constitutional government will soon be restored in Chile, but that is a task we must leave to the Chileans themselves.
We say that there should be no help from us for the unconstitutional régime


I now turn to the question of recognition and refugees. It is this area in which our feelings run deepest. We must bear in mind that Britain was the first, in company with Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Guatemala, to recognise the military régime. Our excuse was that we sought to protect British nationals in Chile. At almost the same time the French recognised the régime and said that their recognition was to protect both foreign and Chilean refugees.
It was disgraceful to rush so headlong into that recognition with a totally inadequate expression of regret about the coup or about the death of President Allende, apart from a formal unpublished message from the Queen two weeks later. There was no condemnation of the coup by the Government and there has since been no expression of concern about the savagery of the junta. This has deeply offended and outraged not only the Labour and trade union movement but also many people outside. It has offended all sense of decency in Britain.

Mr. Christopher Woodhouse: I have listened to the right hon. Lady with a good deal of sympathy. I do not share the conventional view of diplomatic recognition in which, I think, nobody outside the Foreign Offices of the world believes. Can she say what is the difference between the application of the criteria of recognition in the case of the present Government towards the military revolutionary Government in Chile and in the case of the last Labour Government in their recognition, six years ago, of the military revolutionary Government in Greece?

Mrs. Hart: It is a perfectly fair point. I will say only in the light of events that have since taken place in Greece that many Opposition Members would probably have wished that we had behaved in a different way—

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: And said so at the time.

Mrs. Hart: I wish to draw a contrast between other Governments which have recognised the regime, and are now using their recognition to assist those who desperately need help, and the attitude of our Government.
The most immediate and distressing humanitarian problem is that of refugees.

Even The Times has recently had the grace to speak of the bloodiest of recent coups. It is the bloodiest of recent Fascist regimes. The junta itself is frank One or two of its generals have said that the regime is determined that every Socialist in Chile shall be eliminated. The generals are clear about that. This above all else is the aspect of the Government's policy which affronts us. We regard the Government's refusal to provide shelter in Santiago for refugees as naked inhumanity. It represents a closed mind and a closed door to any kind of humanitarian decency that we condemn. It is this above all on which we shall vote tonight to express that condemnation.
We stand almost alone in the world, and alone among the countries of Western Europe, in refusing refuge in our Embassy in Santiago to those people in danger, not simply of their liberty but of their lives. We stand in contrast to Sweden, whose ambassador, with his record of helping those who fled from Nazism in the last war, has behaved with heroic courage in Santiago. Our Government's attitude is in contrast also to that of Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and now Norway, France, West Germany—Le Monde reports that various people have sought refuge in the West German embassy—and Austria. All those countries have refugees. They are all trying and many are succeeding in getting refugees out of the country with safe conduct passes. That is apart from the Latin American embassies which are crowded with refugees from other Latin American countries as well as with Chilean refugees.
One of the problems of refugees is illustrated by the lists of Governments in Europe which have offered between 50 and 300 places for foreign refugees. Britain is not yet included in the list. Latin America has nine transit camps run by the World Council of Churches and the United Nations. The people in those camps must be taken from them by 31st December or their lives will be worth nothing. The problem is to find places for 13,000 foreign refugees who need asylum. In contrast to other Western European Governments, we have offered nothing. Will the British Government now offer places on a scale to match those offered by other countries? Will they press the United Nations to grant the


same facilities to Chilean refugees as were granted in the case of the Sudan? In the case of Chilean refugees, will our embassy in Santiago open its doors to them?
We are asking tonight that fresh instructions be sent to our ambassador to ensure that we can express our humanity in the same way as other people in Western Europe who can observe their embassies exercising humanity in their name.
I turn now to the position of Chilean refugees arriving here. There is now a promise as a result of a meeting between some of us and the Foreign Secretary that consideration will be given to foreign refugees who arrive here without proper papers. The Foreign Secretary was kind enough to give that assurance.
I have what is probably the first test case following the discussion we had with the Foreign Secretary two weeks ago, the case of a young man called Juan Tomic who arrived without proper papers. Immigration officers permitted him to stay for a month in exercise of what the Foreign Secretary promised. I sent details of the case to the Home Secretary about 10 days ago but I have not yet had a reply. It is worth noting that the month which the young man is being allowed will soon be up. It is interesting to note who he is. He is one of the sons of Radimiro Tomic, the Christian Democrat candidate in the last presidential elections. I hope that this young man will be allowed to stay as well as others like him, but we are waiting to hear about this.
We have other points to make which I have no time to mention. We believe that there should be no arms supplied from Britain for Chile, either on a Government aid or credit basis or through private sales. We do not believe that any of the ships being built should go there, although my understanding is that the trade union movement is taking effective steps here.
On all these questions we condemn the Government. We believe that we do so in the name of the majority of British people. We hope for a change of mind by the Government. I find it difficult to believe that only my hon. Friends will support the motion in the Lobby to-night.

It seems to me that this above all issues is one for parliamentarians. It is an issue for democrats, an issue for all those, of whatever party, who have any kind of human compassion and sense of justice.

7.10 p.m.

The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Julian Amery): The motion before the House stands not only in the name of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) but in the names of the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) who is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), the Shadow Foreign Secretary and one of his deputies, the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) as well as in the names of two distinguished back-bench Members. It is therefore brought forward with the full authority of right hon. Gentlemen who aspire to form the next Government and to conduct Britain's foreign policy. It is accordingly an important document and the right hon. Lady's speech was an important speech. I propose therefore to treat both the motion and the speech as such.
The motion calls upon us to do three things. It calls upon the House to criticise Her Majesty's Government for certain actions they undertook at the time of the coup and have undertaken since. It takes sides, categorically, against the present Chilean régime and is thus, by implication, in favour of its predecessor. It also urges that certain consequential measures should be taken in favour of those who supported President Allende and against the present régime. I want to deal with each of those three points in turn.
It begins by criticising what is called the
hasty recognition of the new regime by Her Majesty's Government.
The criteria for recognition in the postwar world were laid down, for the Foreign Office, by Mr. Ernest Bevin. The essential criterion was that the Government to be recognised was in effective control of the country in question and likely to remain so for some time. In the 11 days between the coup and our recognition


of the new régime it became quite clear to us that the new régime was in effective control of Chile.
We were by no means alone in taking this view. The right hon. Lady mentioned some of the countries that have taken the same step as we have taken, some before us. A total of 20 Governments recognised before us, including two Social Democratic Governments, Austria and West Germany.

Mrs. Hart: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House. The German situation is quite different from that of any other country. West Germany's constitution does not require an act of recognition unless there is a territorial change. It is automatic.

Mr. Amery: It maintained its relationship. The option was open to it, as it was to the seven Communist countries, to break off relations, although five Communist countries broke off relations only after we had recognised. They did not make up their minds before hand. China has maintained diplomatic relations with the new régime throughout.
Was this recognition hasty? The grounds for recognition are clear—that the country was under the control of the new régime. Was it hasty? Here we can look at precedents. In 1966 there was a coup in the Argentine when General Ongania overthrew the democratically elected Government of President Illia. The Labour Government of the day recognised the régime 10 days later—1 day quicker than we recognised the new Chilean régime. In 1968 there was a coup in Peru when the military overthrew President Belaúnde. Recognition then came from the Labour Government 14 days later. I can see that it could be arguable that the violent nature of the coup in Chile makes the situation different from that of the Argentine and Peru.
Here again there is a precedent. There was a violent coup in Cuba. It, too, was marked by mass executions and imprisonments. The Conservative Government of the day recognised the Castro Government six days after it had been established, not in any sense approving of it, but because we recognised that it was in effective control.
Other considerations affected the timing of our recognition in Chile. There are 4,000 British subjects living in Chile. It was important that we should be able to protect them. We have substantial economic interests in the country, both in trade and investment. One-third of our copper imports comes from Chile. Hon. and right hon. Members will have very much in mind at present the impact which the shortage of oil has upon our affairs and upon those of the rest of the Western world. We cannot overlook the importance of these matters when other vital raw materials are concerned.
We are also concerned with the future of the Andean Pact and the European Community's relations with it. Chile is an important member of the Andean Pact. The charge of hasty recognition clearly does not stand and is refuted by the terms of the motion. The motion calls upon us to make representations to the Chilean régime and to give asylum. I do not know how we can be expected to make representations if we do not have diplomatic relations and I do not see how we can be expected to give asylum if we do not have an embassy. The motion seems to be self-contradictory.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a question of fact, were any representations made to the Government from the 4,000 British subjects in Chile or their representatives? Were they in favour of recognition? Did the British community in Chile ask for this?

Mr. Amery: The British community in Chile is a fairly widespread body and after the coup we thought it our duty to make sure that we were in a position to protect these people if they should need protection. That is the kind of responsibility which a Government have to undertake. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot expect us to make representations and at the same time to break off relations because that would make it impossible to make representations.
It is a little ironic that the Communist countries, having broken off relations with Chile, are now in a position of having a limited ability either to make representations or to give asylum to those who might be ideologically connected with them. One wonders whether this is a recognition on their part of some


kind of Monroe Doctrine in Latin America.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I do not want to follow the right hon. Gentleman into what is a curiously linguistic analysis of a serious situation. If he wants to stick to the motion he will see that the point is first made that we regret the recognition. That is followed by the acceptance that the Government have unfortunately recognised the régime by saying,
now condemns the refusal of the Government to offer refuge".
The motion is perfectly consistent.

Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. To deplore recognition and at the same time to call for representations and other action seems totally inconsistent. The Communist countries which have broken off relations are not now in a position to make representations on behalf of their friends. That seems to be ironic, and, from their point of view, unfortunate.

Mr. Woodhouse: Perhaps I can help my right hon. Friend to return to the substance of the matter by asking whether the Government gave thought to withdrawing the ambassador but not severing diplomatic relations.

Mr. Amery: No. We decided, as this was an entirely Chilean matter, that there was no objective to be served in withdrawing the ambassador and that the protection of British subjects and British interests as well as such representations as we decided to make would be better furthered by keeping the ambassador at his post. I cannot therefore regret the recognition of the new régime.
I come to the point about asylum. Differing interpretations have been placed by different countries on the Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic relations, and on how far embassies should or should not be used as places of sanctuary for people in danger. The British view on this matter has always been very strict. Our ambassadors have discretion to give asylum to people who are victims of hot pursuit, whether by mobs or even by the police authorities of the country in question. But otherwise it has been our strict rule, applied without exception since the war, as far as I know, that

our missions should not be used as sanctuaries.
The reason for this is quite easy to explain. Embassies exist to establish and maintain relations between Governments. Therefore, by definition, as their job is to maintain relations between Governments, they are not places where opponents of the Government with whom we are trying to establish or maintain relations should take refuge.
I am sorry to say that, in the circumstances of the modern world, if we were to change this policy our embassies would very soon be congested. I like to think that the right hon. Lady would not wish us to differentiate between refusing asylum to refugees from a Left-wing Government or a Right-wing Government. I like to think that she is even handed in all this. I am surprised that the point has not been raised in relation to other coups we have known, such as the Castro coup in Cuba. I do not remember any expression of opinion from the Labour Party then.
This rule has been a cause of considerable heartburning, particularly at the time of the persecution of non-Communists which took place when Communist Governments were set up in Eastern Europe. I have sometimes thought that the rule has been too inflexible. But it was applied in relation to Chile with total impartiality, as it has been in every case elsewhere of which I know, irrespective of the ideology of the Government in question.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: Will the Minister give us two facts? First, what was the date of election of the former President of Cuba, Batista? That might help us in coming to the perspective of his argument. Secondly, will he tell us of any incidents of genocide committed by the revolutionary Cuban régime when it took over which compare even slightly with the excesses of the junta in Chile this autumn?

Mr. Amery: On the first question, I should not like to think that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that it would be appropriate to give refuge to Left-wing refugees in Chile and inappropriate for Right-wing refugees in Havana. That was the clear implication. Where numbers of people executed and imprisoned are concerned, it is extremely difficult to arrive at accurate statistics. I should


have thought that they were not all that different in the two cases.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The Minister makes a good debating point about this matter. If I may use the same kind of parlance in return, would he give refuge in the Berlin Embassy to Adolf Hitler or Pastor Niemöller, or would he shut the door to both?

Mr. Amery: I dare say that it would have been appropriate to have given refuge to Marshal Stalin, in view of his good services in the war.
We are next asked
to press for the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to executions.
Mr. Seconde, our ambassador, has made a number of representations. It is only right to tell the House about these. Immediately after our recognition, Mr. Seconde expressed formal concern to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the treatment of political prisoners or political detainees. On 6th November he made further representations to the Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In recent weeks, both the ambassador and his staff have been taking every opportunity open to them to make it clear in official quarters at various levels that Her Majesty's Government and British public opinion are seriously concerned by allegations of ill treatment of prisoners. Yesterday, the ambassador joined other diplomatic colleagues in Santiago in making representations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Santiago about safe conduct for refugees, following an incident involving a Uruguayan national and the Swedish embassy.
I have set out Mr. Seconde's representations in some detail in the hope that they will refute the scandalous and unfair attack made upon him in the New Statesman a few days ago.
No doubt there will be individual cases in the future on which we shall want to make representations again. We shall continue to remind the Chilean authorities of the unfortunate effects on British opinion of any illegal acts undertaken by them. But to press for the immediate release of all political prisoners seems to be rather a different question.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: Mr. Phillip Whitehead (Derby, North) rose—

Mr. Amery: Why should this be done only in relation to Chile? There were 10 million political prisoners in the Soviet Union at the time of Marshal Stalin. I do not remember that the Attlee Government ever raised the matter of their status in those days.

Mrs. Hart: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Amery: I shall give way gladly in a moment.
We must ask ourselves why we should take a special stance in this Chilean case. We made no representations about the political prisoners in the Soviet Union.

Mr. Molloy: The right hon. Gentleman depends on Stalin for his case.

Mr. Amery: The great majority of us in the House would resent similar statistics from other countries about the people who are either serving prison sentences or are detained because of membership of the IRA. We would not welcome it. Indeed, we do not welcome it. We resent it when people in other countries say to us that we should release people who have been convicted for one reason or another on political charges.

Mrs. Hart: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions, one of which is for information and answer at the end of the debate. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned negotiations and representations about safe conduct. There has been a report that the junta is no longer allowing safe conduct from foreign embassies to the airport. What is happening about that? Was it a false report?
The other question is on a major point. When the right hon. Gentleman says that representations were made against any illegal acts of the regime, is he implying that what it has been doing and it itself are legal?

Mr. Amery: What I am implying is the perfectly clear point that people should not be imprisoned, still less executed, without trial in accordance with Chilean law.

Mr. Buchan: But the coup is against Chilean law.

Mr. Amery: Chilean law still remains, and a number of people are being charged in accordance with Chilean law.

Mr. Whitehead: Mr. Whitehead rose—

Mr. Amery: The process of law is still continuing. The coup itself may or may not be regarded as illegal, but the processes of Chilean law continue in accordance with Chilean statutes. As to the right hon. Lady's point about safe conduct, the last news that I had from Santiago this afternoon was that safe conduct had been or was being given to the Uruguyan lady in question, who had been the subject of the incident concerning the Swedish ambassador. That is why I say that we cannot press for the release of all political prisoners automatically and immediately in Chile when we do not do it in other countries. It is the same regarding an end to executions. I do not remember protests being made about the executions carried out in Cuba. Alas, there are many political prisoners in many countries, and all too many political executions. There are reports in the papers this morning that 54 people face political execution in Zanzibar.
It is not possible for the Government of the United Kingdom to intervene everywhere all over the world. We do our best to protect human rights in the Council of Europe and through the United Nations, but it would be unrealistic to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries as suggested in the motion and it would also very often be, in our experience, counterproductive. I would go further and say that I think it would be invidious to intervene in Chile and not in other countries where there are more political prisoners and where there have been even more political executions.
The motion asks us to provide refuge for Chileans who seek it. No visas are required for Chileans to visit this country, but settlement in this country is severely restricted. At a time when we are excluding a number of Commonwealth citizens and when we have undertaken the obligation to accept free movement of labour within the European Community, I do not think that we could undertake to give priority to Chileans who wish to come and settle here.
Applications, when they are made, will be processed in the ordinary way and will take full account of security considerations. Normal appeal procedures

will be observed, as the right hon. Lady said. So far, eight Chileans sponsored by Professor Stafford Beer have been allowed to come and settle here and have skilled jobs to which they can go.
The right hon. Lady also mentioned, though it is not in the motion, the problem of the non-Chileans, of the many refugees—I think that there are 12,000 or more—who took refuge in Chile under President Allende's regime and who are not allowed to remain there much longer by the present regime. The Chilean Government have made it plain that they are not seeking to repatriate these people to their country of origin. There is an Inter-American Convention on Asylum which in our view should allow most of these people to re-settle in Latin America, and those who are for reasons of their political affiliations in danger could easily go to countries with which they have an ideological affinity.
We are prepared to examine individual cases put to us by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We worked very closely with him when we had the problem of the Uganda refugees.
I do not think that there can be any question of our granting a quota. We have in mind that a number of the people concerned belong to extremist groups such as the Tupamaros who were responsible for the kidnapping of Sir Geoffrey Jackson.
We are asked by the motion to prevent the sale of arms to Chile. There are important naval contracts for the sale of arms to Chile worth about £71 million. Most of them were signed in the time of President Frei. There are important aircraft contracts, some signed in the time of President Frei and some of them signed in the time of President Allende. No military aid is or has been given to Chile. The Government have arranged insurance cover through ECGD. This was arranged before medium- and long-term cover was suspended, which it still is.
On what principle are we asked to suspend the sale of arms to Chile? There is no civil war in Chile. There is no war between Chile and her neighbours ; nor is there a threat of war between Chile and her neighbours. There is no hostility on the part of Chile to Britain or to Britain's allies. I can see no reason why we should suspend these sales of arms and why we


should suspend the contracts into which we have entered.
What would happen to the ships and the aircraft if we were to suspend the sale of arms? Is it suggested that the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force should take them up? If so, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force will need a good deal more than the new estimates propounded by the Labour Party at the Blackpool Conference when it called for a cut of £1,000 in the Defence Estimates.
What about the jobs of the people concerned? I suggest that the right hon. Lady goes to Kingston-upon-Thames, Clydeside and Tyneside and has a talk with the trade unions and workers concerned. If she did that I think she would get a very different answer from the one put forward in the motion.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could pray in aid a doctrine which he used in the Middle East. Why does he not suspend the shipment of arms to Chile?

Mr. Amery: I think that the hon. Gentleman has made an interesting point, and I am very glad to take it up with him. We suspended the sale of arms to Israel and to the Arab countries because they were fighting one another. There is no civil war, no war between countries and no threat of war between countries where Chile is concerned. It would be absolutely absurd to suspend shipments.
Indeed, when I looked into the matter the only logical reason that I can find for embargoing the sale of arms to Chile is that the Opposition are anxious to encourage internal resistance or foreign intervention. This I would not like to believe was for a moment in the right hon. Lady's mind or in the minds of any of her colleagues.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The right hon. Gentleman says, "What would the workers say?" Did not he and the Foreign Secretary for 20 years support the Battle Act which prevented us from selling pharmaceutical products, steel, lorries and such like to Russia, China or any Communist country? If at that time he had asked the workers concerned whether we should have supplied pharmaceutical products, steel and lorries to Russia, China and other Communist countries they would have said, "Yes, of course".

Mr. Amery: I was saying a little earlier that the Chilean régime not only is not involved in civil war and is not threaten-in any of its neighbours but is in no way hostile to us or any of our allies. The same did not apply in the case the right hon. Gentleman has just raised.
We are also asked to withhold future aid and credit from the present Chilean régime and to use our influence to ensure that World Bank and International Monetary Fund assistance is also withheld.
I am glad that the right hon. Lady at least said that she wanted aid to continue for the students who were here and who were sent here in the time of the Allende régime. This seems to me to be humanitarian on her part. It comes a little odd for the Shadow Minister of Development, to call for a stop on aid to what is by general agreement an underdeveloped country.
At any rate, I should have thought that very strange until I studied some of the right hon. Lady's works. In her book "Aid and Liberation" she expresses disapproval in principle of the use of aid to apply political influence. But when interviewed on the subject by The Times she qualified the statement in her book by saying,
There is nothing wrong with political strings if they are the right ones. What matters is that the political judgment you use is right.
What the right hon. Lady is saying, therefore, in effect, is, "Give aid to left-wing Governments. Do not give it to non-left-wing Governments."

Mrs. Hart: The right hon. Gentleman brings me to my feet to ask whether he read my book thoroughly. If he did he would have found that I also went on to say that there are cases where human beings are so outraged by what a country does that it is only correct to suspend or to cut off aid. I cited the case of Bangladesh, when both the right hon. Gentleman's Government and the Labour Party were so outraged by what was going on there that we thought it right to suspend aid.

Mr. Amery: At any rate, the quotation from what the right hon. Lady said to The Times makes it clear that she thinks that political considerations should play an important part in the giving or withholding of aid. In the context of the


motion it would seem that the right hon. Lady is anxious to give aid to a Marxist Government but not to a Government which is not Marxist.
The facts about aid are fairly simple. There is still £100,000 to go from a loan of £750,000 for a steel works. The aid budget for 1973–74 allows for another £370,000 for technical assistance in agriculture, technical education and mining. We have no intention of cutting back this aid. If we did so we would only hurt the Chilean people, regardless of the ideology of their Government.
The right hon. Lady talked about the invisible blockade of the Chilean economy. This is nonsense. In 1970, when President Allende came to power, there were no restrictions whatsoever on ECGD cover, nor was any imposed until in 1971 the Chilean balance of payments obliged the ECGD to reduce the ceiling for extended cover to £250,000. The balance of payments became worse still, inflation was running at the rate of 350 per cent.—which is a little more than we have here!—and only short-term credit was allowed. This remains the position. It will be reviewed in the light of the report of the mission of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, but we do not expect to receive that report until early next year. Decisions will be taken on economic and not on political grounds. In the early part of her speech, the right hon. Lady said—

Mr. Gavin Strang: The right hon. Gentleman has obviously gone through the Opposition motion very carefully, but he omitted at the outset to make any reference to its first two lines. May I ask him specifically whether Her Majesty's Government deplore the overthrow of democracy in Chile, and condemn the atrocities and murders which are taking place?

Mr. Amery: There is a simple answer and it is perfectly straightforward. Naturally we regret that a country which has enjoyed many generations of constitutional government should see that constitutional government overthrown. Naturally, also, we deplore and regret bloodshed and forced imprisonment wherever these occur
The right hon. Lady had a good deal to say in the early part of her speech

about the Chilean revolution and about the coup d'état which is the cause of this debate. She told us her views on the motivation of the Allende regime and gave her evaluation of the different forces at work in Chile. She spoke at some length of the consequences of the coup in terms of imprisonment and casualties, and I acknowledged both her close interest in the subject and the access which she has had to first-hand sources of information about recent events in Chile. From what I know of these debates in the House, other hon. Members will no doubt traverse the same ground, some in support of what she said and some, perhaps, taking issue with her.
In my present job, I have had access to a good deal of information on the Chilean situation, both during the Allende regime and since. I had the privilege of a talk with President Allende in Buenos Aires not very long ago, when he was there for the inauguration of President Cámpora. I also had talks with our own representatives in Santiago, who came to meet me at the conference of ambassadors in Lima, and with Latin American statesmen, particularly Peruvian and Argentinian statesmen, who were in a good position to form a judgment.
It may be helpful to the House if I reserve my comments on the Chilean situation until the end of the debate when, if I may, I will try to answer points raised both by the right hon. Lady and by others. Meanwhile, I would only say that the Government recognise the events that have taken place in Chile as essentially a Chilean dispute settled by Chileans. I know that there have been allegations, which may well have some foundation, of both American and Cuban intervention, but the matter was essentially an internal affair. We are all members of one another, and it is natural that hon. Members in this House should have strong sympathies in a matter of this kind and should wish to express those sympathies. But the Government do not regard it as their duty to pass judgment on what is an internal Chilean conflict.
Our duty is to ensure the protection of British subjects and the promotion of British interests, and to work for peace in the area. This involves developing normal friendly relations with the


Chilean Government of the day, whatever its political colour. This we have done.
I believe that the official Opposition, if they purport to be an alternative Government of this country, should do the same. I deeply regret that they have chosen instead to take up a strongly partisan attitude against the new Chilean Government, by implication in support of the old. This is a quarrel of limited concern to the people of this country.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Clinton Davis: I suppose that we ought to thank the Minister of State for taking the motion seriously. I wish that I could do the same about his speech. I thought it was a disgraceful, superficial speech. I suppose I could pay him the compliment of saying that he seemed to bring to foreign affairs that singular expertise which he displayed during the passage of the Housing Finance Bill. The fact is that we are taking sides on this matter and we are proud to do so. The Government purport to be even-handed—I have heard that expression used before—but they are even-handed in favour of the régime, because that is really what it comes to.
Apparently, the right hon. Gentleman did not listen to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart). This is not an essentially internal affair. This matter goes to the root of the future of parliamentary democracy, not only in Latin America but elsewhere throughout the world, and if the right hon. Gentleman fails to understand that he understands nothing at all. He said that we ought to have normal, friendly relations with the grotesque régime in Chile, and I suppose he would have said the same about Nazi Germany during the 1930s.
The fact is that on 11th September 1973 Chile was garotted. It was a victim robbed of its constitutionalism and of its democracy. The attempts to establish fundamental changes in Chilean society by peaceful means, to correct the gross inequalities which had arisen and to diminish the powers of the multinational companies that were perpetuating those inequalities were thwarted not by the masses of the Chilean people but by those whose economic interests sought

to prevent the changes which Allende was seeking to make and which were so desperately needed.
I had the privilege to go to Chile in 1972 with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) and we met President Allende. We had great differences of opinion, and certainly I would not accept everything for which Allende stood or which his philosophy represented. But I was convinced—and I thought that the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester was also convinced—about his passionate belief in the democratic process. Instead of that, however, a cruel despotism has now descended on Chile. Even the Minister cannot deny that. Thousands have died. In a matter of two weeks there were 3,000 corpses put into one mortuary in Santiago alone, as my right hon. Friend pointed out.
That is a measure of what has happened. All the vulgar, ugly and obscene displays of Fascism have been revealed in all their horror in Chile over the last 10 weeks or so. All opposition to the junta has been hunted down. There have been xenophobic attacks on foreigners. In La Prensa, the Christian Democrat daily which circulates in Santiago, there has been published a vicious anti-Semitic article. The sort of article which we have always associated with Nazi Germany appears again, blaming the Jews because they are responsible for the Communists.

Mr. Harold Soref: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that large sections of the Jewish community left Chile because of Allende and are now refugees?

Mr. Davis: It is perfectly true that, right at the beginning of the Allende régime, a number of wealthy Jews left Chile because they were afraid that they might be affected materially. But there was no evidence to suggest that Allende ever brought to bear upon the Chilean scene a word of anti-Semitism, and the hon. Gentleman knows that. Indeed, he had the very closest relations with the Israeli Ambassador, with whom I and my hon. Friend the Member for Walton discussed this matter at length. There were substantial numbers of Israelis working on agrarian reform. There


was inscribed on the walls in certain villages by the Fascist Party there "Israelis go home". I suppose it is a change from "Yanks go home."
Not only did we have that xenophobia. Of course, the hon. Gentleman needs no lessons about that. We have had summary executions, brutal interrogations, torture of the most extreme kind such as electric rods on the genitals, denunciations, rewards for denunciations, the suppression of trade unions, the loss of the right to strike, and the free Press and Parliament totally subverted. Of course, the hon. Gentleman does not complain about that. During the time that Allende was there, not one journalist or opposition spokesman was shot while resisting arrest. Quite a few have been shot during the last few weeks. The universities have been raided, and there has been book-burning with all the other things that we associate with that sort of régime.
The Times has said that this represents the bloodiest political upheaval which Latin America has seen since the Mexican revolution. Why? It is said that it is to save the nation. From what?

Mr. Soref: Allende.

Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman says "Allende"—a president who presided over a country enjoying universal suffrage, who increased his popular vote at the election in 1963 from 36 per cent. to 44 per cent. The hon. Gentleman does not now seek to intervene. Allende was a president who was pledged to carry through a fundamental programme of social and economic reform, who was determined to eradicate from Chilean society that poverty, degradation and humiliation which had been the lot of the Chilean masses for years. He nationalised the copper mines—a terrible offence—which happened to be aided and abetted by all the other parties in the Chilean Parliament; that measure went through unanimously. He nationalised other industries. Was this a reason for the bloody upheaval? He restored the land to the landless. Was this a reason for the upheaval?
Of course, in doing that Allende brought upon himself the unyielding enmity of the Americans, the ITT and other multinational companies, and, of

course, all those who were prepared to go along with American policy, like our own British Government. The right hon. Gentleman pooh-poohed the whole idea of the invisible blockade. But aid and credit was blocked. The loan re-scheduling which Allende yearned to achieve was stopped. There is ample evidence to show that, even as Allende was on the brink of coming to power, the Americans had stopped the loan and the aid in the pipelines to Chile. It has to be remembered that much of Chile's immediate difficulties resulted from the borrowings of the Frei régime and those amounted to one-quarter of Chile's export earnings. The reality is that ITT and Kennecott yearned for their revenge. They decided to sabotage the Chilean economy, and they were assisted in that enterprise by those who now seek to sustain the junta to preserve their own economic life. In those circumstances it is hardly surprising that the Chilean economy should come under great strain. It is a great pity that the USSR and China were not more forthcoming in their aid and that they were prepared to allow Chile to decay.
I want to examine the rôle of our own Government. We have heard tonight the clucking noises of distaste for the worst excesses of the régime. They made representations—and a fat lot of good that seems to have done. In the main, however, having aided and abetted the United States and the multi-nationals in the destruction of the Chilean experiment, the Government have taken on a posture of almost complete rigidity. They have abandoned humanity. The right hon. Gentleman says that we cannot take people into our embassy in Santiago because that would create a terrible precedent. It is time that the Foreign Office got its priorities right and changed these ridiculous precepts.
I went to see the Foreign Secretary with some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. He said "What would happen if a number of Jews in Moscow were to seek refuge in our embassy?" We all said "Of course, the right thing to do is to admit them." The right hon. Gentleman says that that is totally impracticable. Over 2,000 Chileans have sought asylum in embassies in Santiago. A number of other nationals have done so as well. The United Nations has been


anxious to place refugees. Most Latin American embassies opened their doors. Most European countries within the Nine opened their doors too and responded to that request for the placement of refugees—the Papal Nuncio, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France and, above all, Sweden, whose ambassador has led the situation heroically and deserves to be commended for what he has done. I wish that our ambassador had half the guts that that man has shown. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is all unrealistic. How did these people manage to do it if it is so unrealistic? We have had paraded before us yet again tonight the same miserable arguments which indicate this terrible rigidity of mind on the part of the Government.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Does the hon. Gentleman think it is fair to say what he said about our ambassador, who is, after all, only obeying instructions from Her Majesty's Government, whether he agrees with those instructions or not?

Mr. Davis: I was led to understand by the right hon. Gentleman that the ambassador had a certain discretion. If he fails to exercise that discretion, he needs to be condemned. I am happy to shift the blame from the ambassador to the Government. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is quite right; that is where it really belongs. That is where the burden really falls. What we have had from a succession of answers to questions and from the right hon. Gentleman's speech today hardly indicates a real change. It is bitterly reminiscent of the attitude displayed during the 1930s. I was reading the reports of some of those debates the other day. When we knew what was happening in the concentration camps, the Government were saying "We shall have to examine the cases individually." I think that a terrible burden falls upon the shoulders of those who held office in a previous Conservative Government in taking that attitude. A terrible burden may well fall upon the present Government's shoulders too when the history of this situation comes to be written.
Britain is standing alone. But the refugees will not go away. I suppose that one of the very few points of resemblance between the British Foreign

Office and Greta Garbo has been their profound desire to be alone and the manner in which that desire has been frustrated by constant intrusion. The refugees will not go away.
I want to relate the story of a young British refugee. It is the story of Michael Gatehouse. At the time of the coup he was working in the Forestry Institute in Santiago. He was arrested 10 days later, pushed around at the police station, refused permission to contact Her Majesty's Ambassador and kept standing with his hands above his head from ten o'clock in the morning till four o'clock in the afternoon ; they burned his books in front of him and they stole his personal belongings. He was transferred to the national stadium where he resided, if one may put it that way, for seven days. He was interrogated and threatened, and still he was not allowed to see the British Ambassador, the man with such enormous influence, or the consul.
What protest has been made about Michael Gatehouse? What happened to him is not remarkable by contrast to the treatment of Chileans and Latin Americans who were in the same gaol. While Mr. Gatehouse was there he learned the true meaning of the Chilean junta. He heard of the killings and he knew of the tortures. He saw Sergir Moraes, a Brazilian, tortured. He was tied by his wrists and ankles and a black bag was put over his head. He was pummelled about the ears until his hearing was impaired. There is now no news of that man.
On his release Mr. Gatehouse asked the embassy to investigate this case. What did our man in Santiago do? The first secretary said he would investigate it, but nothing more has been heard. However, that same first secretary—I presume that he was acting under orders, because I must not blame him and I do not seek to do so—allowed his garden to be searched for political refugees who were seeking refuge in the adjoining Costa Rican embassy. He allowed the police into his premises and he padlocked his gates 24 hours a day to prevent the possibility of refugees getting in. Michael Gatehouse learned to his horror first-hand the stories of the tortures and yet our attitude is rigid and unbending. Jeremy Bentham once said :
I am apt to doubt the virtue of an obtrusive puritan and rigourist".


I doubt the virtue of this Government.
I do not propose to talk about recognition at any length, but what has been said about recognition by the Minister was a load of codswallop. Recognition would have had some merit had we taken the sort of stand that the Swedes and others took. It had no merit in the way in which the British Government reacted. What has happened is that British Leyland, presumably with the authority of the Government, has given four cars to the junta as a gift.

Mrs. Hart: It has not been publicised so much in the Press as was the original announcement that British Leyland was to promote this gift, but as the result of representations from the trade unions and others the gift of cars was stopped and instead a collection is being made for children of those who have suffered in the coup.

Mr. Davis: It is a good thing British Leyland has seen sense, even if the Government have not. The Government are still to provide Hawker Hunters—the same aircraft as bombed the palace. Two hundred servicemen are being trained here and Chilean destroyers are being refitted. The Minister says that we were doing it for Allende, but that argument must be knocked on the head. The two situations cannot be equated. Allende was democratically elected and in his place there is now a hideous junta which is not beginning to show any signs of decency. There is a difference.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Has not the hon. Member touched upon the whole point of this debate? Allende was democratically elected but he did not conduct himself democratically. [Interruption.]

Mr. Heffer: How dare you.

Mr. Davis: The hon. and gallant Gentleman was with me in the office of the deputy editor of El Mercurio and we were told how that journal was displaying propaganda which would have made the Daily Telegraph look like Chicks Own. At the end of our discussion I saw the hon. and gallant Gentleman go to the deputy editor and, quite rightly, thank him for interviewing us. And then he said "Carry on with the good work". This is a measure of the hon. and gallant

Gentleman. Nevertheless, notwithstanding that I have attacked him, I enjoyed his company while we were there.
To give aid to the new régime is not to do what the Chilean people want. The whole argument is absurd. Why did the Government cut off credits to Allende if they are now obviously anxious to give aid to this lot? My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark clearly summarised our attitude about this. Her speech represented a united view of the British Labour movement. She needs to be applauded.
It is a pity that the Government cannot speak with more authority. They fail to recognise the fact that Allende articulated for the hungry masses, not merely of Chile but of the Third World as a whole. He spoke of a fundamental change of the parliamentary process. His was the voice of those masses. It is a voice which has been silenced to some extent but it will not remain silent. If we fail to hear the cries for help from those masses, others will hear them and it will be the worse for the long-term interests of this country.

8.6 p.m.

Sir Robin Turton: The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Hart) rightly said that we must form our judgment on this from the facts as we know them. This is the essence of the issue between the two sides of the House. She quoted extensively from reports by Communist and Left-wing correspondents who have been expelled from Chile in recent weeks. Those reports did not correspond with reports from other correspondents throughout the world, nor do they correspond with the evidence of those who have come back from Chile since 11th September. Thus we must try to discover the facts and pass our judgment.
The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) traced it back to the time when Senor Allende came to power. He had 36 per cent. of the votes of the country behind him and then in order to be elected president he signed a document—the Statute of Constitutional Guarantees. In that document he guaranteed the freedom of the mass media and of speech and security for the medium-sized and small agricultural and industrial firms. All


went well for a few months until Senor Altamirano, who is Secretary-General of the Socialist extreme wing of the Government, took power. From that time newsprint was refused to the opposition Press ; State advertising was restricted to Government newspapers ; and opposition television stations were periodically shut down.
In February 1972 the Government announced their intention to take over 91 key firms which accounted for 50 per cent. of Chile's output. I can see that, with the exception of the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Labour benches must have felt a certain sympathy with that move. However, at the same time small farms and small firms were being requisitioned either by the Government or by the guerillas and the MIF, particularly around Osorno, without compensation. As a result, by August of this year inflation was running at 320 per cent. per annum, food was scarce and a black market was prevalent. It was clear that the country was then running into a state of economic collapse.
On 23rd August the Chilean Congress passed the following resolution :
The Government is not merely responsible for isolated violations of the law and the Constitution, it has made them into a permanent system of conduct.
Congress was saying that democracy had disappeared. The resolution said that Señor Allende, and particularly Señor Altamirano, had destroyed democracy in Chile.

Mr. Whitehead: The right hon. Gentleman is being less than fair to the House with his selective account of events in the past year. Does he not agree that there were further elections this year in which Señor Allende's coalition increased its share of the vote to more than 40 per cent.?

Sir Robin Turton: In those elections he received fewer votes than in the municipal elections the previous year. He increased his share of the vote from 36 per cent. to 43 per cent., but he had dropped from 49 per cent. in the municipal elections. That was long before the events I am describing.

Mr. Whitehead: Mr. Whitehead rose—

Sir Robin Turton: The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to challenge anything I say when he makes his own speech. I want briefly to present the facts as I have been given them both by correspondents I have read and by those who were in Chile at the time.
On 7th August a plot to assassinate all the senior naval officers in Valparaiso and to start a mutiny was uncovered. Señor Altamirano, the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party, admitted that he was involved in that plot.
During that time the lorry owners, mostly one-man businesses, had been on strike since July for the second time during Señnor Allende's period in office. The police were being replaced by the Grupo de Amigos Personales, the President's own bodyguard, and the powers of the police were being curtailed.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned that in September, three days before the coup, there was a three-day general strike declared by the workers of Chile. Things had come to such a pass that something had to happen.
Then there was the military intervention on 11th September. After that was found the celebrated Plan Z. My information comes from those who were in Chile at the time. The plan, found in one of the safes in the Moneda, was to exterminate all the senior military officers and all the political leaders. Those are the facts as given by people in Chile.

Mr. Heffer: Whose facts?

Sir Robin Turton: The facts are from those who were in Chile at that time.

Mr. Heffer: Who?

Sir Robin Turton: The hon. Gentleman may care to read the correspondents. James Nelson Goodsell, of the Christian Science Monitor had the information just after the coup. I have spoken to people who were in Chile then who are convinced that there was a plot to exterminate people. It was to have been carried out on 17th September, Chile's Independence Day, by an army of 13,000 Cuban, North Korean and Chilean extremists. When the Moneda was taken, an arsenal of weapons was found.
Before we judge the military junta we should bear those facts in mind and


consider how we in this country would have acted if we had been faced by a Communist tyranny. I realise that many Labour Members have a certain sympathy for that point of view. But let the House remember that the Chilean armed forces have had a record of keeping out of politics, except for one time in 1924. Unlike other Latin American countries, they have scrupulously kept out of politics.
I deplore the fact that there is not now democracy in Chile. Our Government's rôle should be to encourage Chile to return to democracy as soon as possible, and I do not believe that the motion would help that in any way.
We have heard many quotations from some correspondents in Chile. I end by quoting a Chilean correspondent of La Tercera, who wrote :
That group of unscrupulous caudillos that governed us for three years left the country in the greatest state of ruin in our history. Agricultural and livestock production was practically destroyed, as the enormous sums allocated for the importation of food prove. A similar thing occurred with industry, mining, and all the country's sources of wealth.
That is the heritage left to us by Salvador Allende Gossens and his henchmen, who were controlled by international communism and, in addition, had endeavoured to destroy this highly industrious nation both physically and morally.
Thanks to the patriotic, heroic, and unselfish intervention of our armed forces, an end to this infernal situation, which had seemed irreversible to us, was achieved.
That is the view of Roberto Campo.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: It is difficult to follow some of the speeches from the Government benches. One thing is very clear from them—that many Conservative Members are democrats as long as they are winning. If they and their friends in various parts of the world are losing by democratic decisions, it appears that they are happy to turn to violence and to support the military overthrow of democratic régimes.
We are discussing the military overthrow of a democratically-elected government. President Allende would obviously not be supported by the votes of Conservative Members. But he was democratically elected to his position and could never have been accepted as President

without the support of Congress and the Senate. That man and his Government have been murdered, overthrown by force. Do not Conservative Members realise the enormity of what they are defending? Has it not dawned on them that we are talking about the destruction of democracy? Of course some Conservative hon. Members say "No". That only confirms what I said earlier—namely, that Conservative hon. Members are democrats as long as they are winning.
I ask some of the younger Conservative hon. Members, who I believe are democrats, to search their consciences and to look closely at what has happened in Chile. All right, it was a Marxist Government, but it was led by a Marxist who happened to be a Freemason. That is a remarkable Marxist. The Popular Unity Government had in it a strong Catholic organisation known as MAPU. It was supported by masses of Catholic workers throughout Chile.
For the first time in the history of the Chilean people, those who were living in the slums were beginning to eat properly. The middle classes were saying "The country is going to ruin. There is no food." There was no food in certain places because for the first time the workers were getting food. The Allende Government immediately raised the rates of pay and helped to better the conditions of the working class people in Chile. That was not undemocratic. Such action was initiated by democratic decisions.
I wish to take up some of the matters which were raised by the Minister in what was the most disgraceful and odious speech I have ever heard in this House. The right hon. Gentleman talked about asylum as though we had no traditional attitudes to the giving of asylum. We have always boasted that political refugees, no matter who they are, are welcome to our shores as long as they are political refugees. If we look back in history we can see a long list of political refugees. Do the right hon. Gentleman's words mean that the Government have now changed our traditions? If so, they are turning their back on something which has made me feel proud as an Englishman. Is that what the Government are doing? It would seem so.
The Chilean Popular Unity Government apparently was a Government of


which the British Government did not approve. Reference has been made to Greece. The argument was used that the Labour Government recognised the Greek Colonels. I say, "Shame on the Labour Government for doing so." I said so at the time. Nowadays we too hastily use the argument that certain people are effectively in control. When democracy is destroyed in any part of the world it is a blow against democracy in Britain. Democracy is indivisible. Our task is to fight for democratic government in every part of the world, whether it is in the Soviet Union, Chile, Greece or elsewhere.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) said that only the Left-wing or Communist people who have come out of Chile are writing and telling us what had happened. Newsweek, I suppose, is run by Communists. I am sure it is! An article which appeared in Newsweek on 8th October said :
The military junta will not admit that there have been mass executions since the overthrow of Salvador Allende's Marxist Government. 'We have executed perhaps eight people since then for shooting at troops,' Colonel Pedro Ewing told newsmen.
The article continues :
But that simply is not true. Last week I slipped through the side door into the Santiago city morgue, flashing my junta press pass with all the impatient authority of a high official. One hundred and fifty dead bodies were laid out on the ground floor, awaiting identification by family members. Upstairs I passed through a swing door and there in a dimly lit corridor lay at least 50 more bodies squeezed one against another, their heads proped up against the wall. They were all naked.
Is a Communist writing for Newsweek? I urge all hon. Members to read the article to which I have referred—namely, "Slaughterhouse in Santiago".

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I suppose that I should have foreseen the sort of speech which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) would make. The source from which he quotes is an unusual one even for him. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be more authentic to take the report of the International Red Cross, which says :
Representatives of this organisation have visited persons detained in different parts of the national territory, and have publicly declared that their conditions are completely adequate.

Mr. Heffer: I should not have given way to the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: It is distressing, is not it?

Mr. Heffer: Yes. In a personal conversation with me the hon. and gallant Gentleman said that what had happened in Chile was absolutely right. I was deeply shocked. Although I have disagreed with the views which the hon. and gallant Member expresses, I have held him in high respect. I lost that respect when he told me that he thought what had happened in Chile was justified. Is the murder of a president, the destruction of a government and the hunting down of people justified?
If Conservative hon. Members think that there has been a Communist plot, they should look at the background paper sent to all hon. Members this morning from the Catholic Institute for International Relations. Let them read that paper. Let them read the detailed information which it gives. I have not sufficient time to read it to them but I draw attention to it because it is a particularly interesting document.
I do not want to say very much more because I feel emotional about Chile.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: That is the point.

Mr. Heffer: I met, as did the hon. and gallant Gentleman, good and decent democrats in all walks of life and of all political parties in Chile. They were people who were dedicated to the democratic process. They believed passionately in democracy. Chile was called the England of Latin America. They based their democratic concepts on British concepts. Many of those people may be dead, imprisoned or hunted out of their country. They may be hiding. Who knows what has happened to Oscar Weiss? Even members of the National Party have been arrested under the junta. The Trade Union Congress of Chile has been destroyed and its leaders imprisoned, some shot. Can we possibly accept all this?
I feel emotional about this because I believe in democracy and in Parliament, and when democracy is destroyed in any part of the world for any reason I feel


very emotional about it. In Liverpool, most of the dockers in my constituency are very good Catholics. They have refused to handle material for Chile. I say that that is magnificent. I hope that other workers in this country will follow suit, because we have a tradition among our workers of putting principle before expediency. There was a time when the workers of Lancashire starved rather than have the cotton imported from the Southern States of the United States. That is also our tradition, also part of our history.
I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will search their consciences and support the Opposition motion.

8.30 p.m.

Sir Frederic Bennett: There are only two comments I want to make about the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). One is intended to be a sincere compliment. Having debated with him before, I fully accept that he believes passionately in the causes which he advances and that he feels deeply that whatever past Labour Governments may or may not have done does not tie him in the views he expresses. Whatever past Labour Governments may or may not have done or whatever a future Labour Government may do—although if he is a member of such he may find himself in some difficulties then—up to now he has always been able to say, when we point to double standards, that he did not agree with some of those past decisions.
Secondly, I hope that on reflection he will regret having disclosed to the House what he says was said to him in a private conversation. I have been in this House for a considerable time and have at times been tempted to yield to the temptation to repeat what hon. Members opposite have said to me about their party policies and their leadership, but I would thereby have caused a great deal of embarrassment to many of those whom I regard as my friends. I hope, therefore, that on reflection the hon. Gentleman will feel that my rebuke is justified. If we start revealing private conversations in this House, there is no limit to the difficulty of maintaining standards here.
I have not been to Chile and it is not my purpose to argue the merits of what some may or may not have written about events there, and whether the truth of their statements may or may not be proved. Other hon. Members may well know more about the subject of what happened out there than I do. I want to get the debate back into the perspective of what this country should have done and what we ought to be doing today.
Over and over again in the last two or three years, we have seen the most blatant and extravagant and disgraceful of double standards. Tonight, it has been said that any laws which the present Chilean Government may have brought in or which are being enforced are not legal because the regime came to power through a coup and therefore such laws should be disregarded.
I should like to be told of a single Communist Government in Eastern Europe or elsewhere who have come to power other than by a coup. It is a fact that the Czechoslovak Government came to power not only by a coup but by a coup enforced by the bayonets of a foreign Power. Yet there is not a whimper when it comes to the question of recognition being used as a weapon by which we show our approval or disapproval in that context. There has never been a suggestion from the Labour benches—not even from the hon. Member for Walton—that we should withdraw recognition from Czechoslovakia, which is not only a dictatorship but a dictatorship imposed by an alien Power.
Recently the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition went to Prague as a guest of the Czechoslovakian Government—Labour Members will have to listen to this. The right hon. Gentleman indicated quite clearly that he thought that if we were to induce a more reasonable frame of mind within those countries with whose governments we may disagree then we should maintain contacts with them.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: And he is right.

Sir F. Bennett: Yes, the right hon. Gentleman was right. There has never been any criticism about the fact that we should try to improve our contacts with


all countries whether or not we approve of their regimes. I have been consistent in this view, whether it involves a Communist country, or South Africa or anywhere else. Right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour benches maintain a deliberate and perverse double standard on all these facts.
Let me move to Labour's record both in government and in Opposition. We recently had a debate in this House in which—unless there has been a change in the Shadow Cabinet allocation of responsibilities of which I am not aware—the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) spoke on behalf of the Labour Party. He sought to reprove the Conservative Government for not extending recognition to North Vietnam. There is one big difference in that situation : that is a Communist Government. I should like to read a few sentences from the right hon. Gentleman's speech. In regard to his criticism that the present Government had not extended recognition to North Vietnam, the right hon. Gentleman said :
What is the reason for the delay? Is recognition supposed to be some sort of prize for good behaviour? … I hope that is not the position.
Later in the same speech the right hon. Gentleman, again referring to North Vietnam, said :
I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he wants to exercise influence or not. If Her Majesty's Government want to exercise influence they should recognise the accredited Government there, and when they do so perhaps they will be able to talk to the Prime Minister of North Vietnam and other leaders. That in no sense implies any moral approbation of the régime, but it implies the reality of the situation …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June 1973 ; Vol. 858, c. 1744–5.]
May I pose in rhetorical terms the question whether that speech could not equally apply to the influence we may or may not exercise in Chile. The only difference is the colour of the political flag they fly. There is no Labour Member now present who can deny that fact.

Mr. Molloy: If the hon. Gentleman will give way, I will deny it.

Sir F. Bennett: I will not give way for the reason that I want to give other hon. Members the opportunity to speak.

Mr. Molloy: Then why ask the question?

Sir F. Bennett: I have been too long in the House to be caught by a remark like that. I said that I posed it as a rhetorical question. If the hon. Member looks up the word in the Oxford Dictionary, he will see that it means that I do not expect an answer. That is why I prefaced my question with that adjective.
According to the Opposition motion, we rushed too hastily into recognition of the new Chilean Government. But it must surely be said that by the time we extended recognition on 22nd September, 20 other countries had already recognised the Chilean Government, including some Socialist governments, including West Germany and Austria. We have a situation in which the Opposition say we were hasty in recognising Chile. By some strange reasoning it is a bad thing to recognise a government of the Chilean type because apparently we do not wish to exercise the influence which we would have if we did recognise it. But, in the Opposition's view, when one is dealing with a Communist régime, recognition is openly and repeatedly advocated. In other words, they believe that recognition is a necessary prelude to influence only when we are dealing with the Communist world.
I now wish to say a few words about arms and trade. I have seen this day coming. I have looked forward to the day when we could recall the past few weeks when we heard advanced from the Opposition benches arguments to the effect that it was not a matter of favouring any particular country but that the sanctity of arms contracts, once made must be honoured, otherwise Britain's word would never be believed again. That was said only a short while ago, and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is not present to hear me repeat them. I have not let him know of my intention to refer to what he said. However, I intend no criticism.
Only a few days ago the hon. Gentleman spoke lustily at Question Time about the fact that if Britain were to break arms contracts her word would never be believed again in any part of the world. Apparently when we are discussing Chile and arms contracts which have been made, we must cancel them. The word "sanctity" is then removed from the


vocabulary of Opposition hon. Members. These are the facts, and the Opposition cannot deny that this is what has been happening. Can they tell me how they manage to select one form of sanctity and not another? I shall be happy to listen elsewhere to any arguments they may advance—

Mr. Molloy: Mr. Molloy rose—

Mr. Arthur Latham: Mr. Arthur Latham(Paddington. North)  rose—

Sir F. Bennett: No. I will not give way—

Mr. Latham: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member constantly to challenge other hon. Members and to deny them any right of reply to his points? May it be recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT that a number of Opposition Members have sought to answer the hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett)?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Murton): Order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Latham: In any event, my protest is on the record.

Sir F. Bennett: By some strange thinking I had an idea that that would be a bogus point of order, and this conclusion has now been justified. If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite want to explain their double standards, they are welcome to do so at leisure on some other occa-sison.
I move now to the suggestion of trade and aid boycotts. Recently I seem to have heard it suggested that because the Arab States disagree with the policies of other countries, justified or unjustified, it is blackmail for them to use economic weapons to further their ends. Apparently it is permissible to call that blackmail. But apparently we think that because we disapprove of the policies of another Government we have the right to exercise economic, trading and financial boycotts. Whatever the Opposition may think about my speech, there are people outside this country who notice this dichotomy of thinking and actually see for themselves that Britain stands on a pedestal saying, "If we do not like this or that country's policies, we have the right to use every economic weapon at our disposal to overturn

those policies, but, if anyone else does it, it becomes political blackmail which it is impossible for Britain to accept."
I come, then, to the record of the Labour Government. When at an earlier stage the Argentine forsook the form of democracy that it then had and endured a military coup, the Labour Government of the day used almost the same language, saying that the policies of Argentina were for Argentina to work out for herself and that if that country were not hostile to us there was no reason for not maintaining arms deliveries to it, and the Labour Government continued arms deliveries. It may be that the sprinkling of right hon. and hon. Members at present on the Opposition benches believed that their own Government were wicked and wrong in the past and that they would all ensure that this never happened again. However we can deal only with the record of a Government. We cannot deal with the records of individual hon. Members, whether they sit above or below the Gangway.
My last word is to my own Government. I understand from what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said that eight Chileans are coming to this country. I am not clear whether they are coming as refugees, and I have done my best to find out. The most recent information that I have, which I ask my right hon. Friend to confirm, is that the eight persons concerned are not coming here as refugees but are coming here because they possess skills and training which will be of real use to this country. I have tried to discover what those skills are which should lead us to allow eight Chileans with special skills to come here at a time when we are exercising rigorous control over Commonwealth immigration. I understand that they are coming as economic and business consultancy managers. I should not think that the Chilean Government's record on economic matters over the last year or two justified our bringing in Chilean business consultants to help us with our admittedly difficult economic position. If we need the advice and assistance of business consultants from Chile, then, in view of their past contribution to the economy of that country, I would say, "Come back Balogh and Kaldor, all is forgiven."

8.46 p.m.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: By ending with a fifth-form debating point the hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) summed up the whole of his speech.

Sir F. Bennett: He at least is pleased with it.

Mr. Kinnock: Sitting there in a flatulent pose, I suppose he is pleased with anything. The sense of the hon. Gentleman's speech was completely nauseating. The whole business, from his point of view, revolved around the exposure of what he called double standards. In international diplomacy double standards are practised by all Governments.
I am concerned about any British Government, but what concerns me more tonight is the absence of any kind of moral standards by Her Majesty's Government and, indeed, by the hon. Member for Torquay. It was obvious from what he said that he was not in the least interested in proposing or opposing any argument tonight. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman was confessing that he has no objection to the brutal suppression of democratic and civil rights in Chile or anywhere else.
What the hon. Gentleman finds offensive about our motion is that we are seeking to uphold established democratic rights against the fist of the Chilean military junta. I was not surprised at what the hon. Gentleman said. He is a man with some military background and, like people of other backgrounds, it tends to formulate certain political attitudes, if not the psychology of attitudes, towards different subjects.
I was rather more surprised at the speech by the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton), a man old enough to be my grandfather and of whom I had always thought as essentially a man of gentility. I was absolutely amazed—there is no political purpose in saying this—at the brutality and deliberate perversion of reports coming out of Chile by a right hon. Member of his stature for whom I have previously felt respect.
Let us cut away the arguments about the balance between Left and Right commentators making their reports on the

Chilean situation just before and since the coup and during October and the beginning of this month and say that they neutralise one another. But the evidence and the reports coming out of Chile by what the right hon. Gentleman dismisses as subversive Left-wing fellow-travelling Communists vastly outweigh the numbers coming out which are favourable or even neutral in their approach to the régime.
People like Hugh O'Shaughnessy and several other British journalists, who in the past three years have written regular columns which, in a proper democratic way, have been critical of certain aspects of the Allende régime, are not parrot journalists sponsored by the Popular Unity Government. These people have been reporting affairs in Chile as they would have reported affairs in France, the Federal Republic of Germany or any other country that could be described as being governed by an elected representative, democratic Government. The credentials of these men were established in the years before the coup and their feelings as expressed in their reports since the coup deserve more respect because of that.
The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said that we had been told only half the story and that there remained to be told the story of the Right, and he quoted from it. I do not think that it holds any more water than the story from the Left, but if we concede the argument about reports and forget about them I think that we are entitled to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman's logic, to his sense of history and to his own two eyes.
Can the right hon. Gentleman really imagine the tank battalions of the Chilean Army, the jet fighters and fighter bombers of the Chilean Air Force, the battleships of the Chilean Navy and the armed police of Chile going to the aid of the poor downtrodden peasants and proletariat of Chile? It is a lot of nonsense to say that these forces of reaction were doing anything but going to the aid of the established forces of the rich and the wealthy whose wealth Allende was hoping to usurp in the cause of redistributing wealth and bringing economic justice and order to the country.
Those men did not drive their tanks, fire their guns and rockets, or drop their


bombs in the cause of saving the Chilean economy from destruction, or in the cause of saving Chilean democracy from destruction. They did it for the reason for which any usurping Fascist power or any usurping militaristic power has done it at any time at any place in history, whether we are talking about the Norman barons, Soviet tanks in Central Europe, the invasion of the Sudetenland, or the invasion of Chilean civil rights in September of this year. They are classic examples of what happens when tyranny is exerting itself.
There was an elected democratic Government in Chile. There was a free Press there. There were no political prisoners in the gaols. There was no restriction on the freedom of journalism or the Press. That was the situation in Chile, but that situation no longer exists because thousands of people have been incarcerated, killed, bullied, beaten or driven out of the country. Thousands have fled for their lives.
What the Government have to decide is where they stand when force usurps a democratically elected Government. That is the question, and they must make up their minds instead of indulging in semantics. I note that all Conservative Members who have spoken today, and especially the Minister, have chosen the semantic way out of the problem in a manner that would do discredit to a junior school debate. They have relied entirely on any apparent or alleged weakness in the drafting of a critical motion to get out of the tight corner in which a Tory politician can find himself when he has to state where he stands when democracy and the freedom of people are threatened.
The Minister made it clear where he stands. He is prepared to mouth certain meaningless criticisms of the military junta. Many of the Minister's hon. Friends are prepared to stammer in support of the right hon. Gentleman, but they have not answered the crucial question to the satisfaction of the British people, and they certainly have not answered it to the satisfaction of the Chilean people.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) in appealing not so much to the older Conservative Members—though I suspect that there

may be one or two who have experience of Spain, Abyssinia and Manchuria—as to the younger ones. My experience of those areas in the 1930s is nil, but I read about them in my school history books, just as no doubt many hon. Gentleman opposite did. There may be some hon. Gentlemen opposite who during their political lifetime have seen the crumbling of popularly elected Governments or the supersession of feudal Governments by modern Fascist Governments and have regretted that they did not take action at the time. Older hon. Gentlemen might wish to take meaningful action against the junta in Chile.
Younger Members have observed the embarrassment with which anyone who has supported dual standards or who has been compromising or restrictive in his criticism of anti-democratic forces presents himself to the House. I hope that when I have been a Member for a few more years I shall be able to say—and I hope that young Conservative Members will be able to join me—that we have never had to be ashamed of the stand we have taken on behalf of democracy.
I had prepared notes for my speech, but I have been so appalled by the attitude of Conservative Members that something more than a rehearsed speech is called for. If hon. Members wish to call it emotion, they can do so. I call it history and a sense of decency. I therefore join my hon. Friend the Member for Walton in throwing away notes and saying that we must vote with our stomachs and hearts in saying whose side we are on. Are we on the side of brutality and the suppression of civil rights, or are we on the side of maintaining our own parliamentary traditions and freedom of speech?
The Minister said that we have rules which govern our attitude towards the question of asylum. If they do not permit us to stand up for democracy and to protect democrats anywhere in the world, on either side of the Iron Curtain or in any hemisphere, they must be changed, because we shall gain respect in the world of today and of the future by standing up for our principles. We can take Sweden as an example.
As the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said, if this is the first intervention by Chilean militarism in the political affairs of that country, there


is an easy answer for it. The army, navy and air force of Chile are involved in controlling politics in that country because for the first time in its history Chile has just had a Socialist Government. That Government gave rise to the first militarist repression. The answer goes far beyond us with our temperate attitudes.
We may argue that there is still time for debate and for initiatives to be taken by democratic Governments throughout the world. But the junta has taught people in Chile and the rest of the Third World that they will not beat forces of that kind with ballot boxes. They will not be able to build a guard against militarism with piles of ballot papers. The language which the militarists, ITT and the multinational corporation understand is not the language of democracy and peace. People will have to learn the lesson of Chile in the hardest possible way.
The Government could possibly delay, even counteract, the development of a violent retort to the counter-revolution in Chile by standing up and being counted on the side of democracy, giving those who still wish to argue their way back to democratic power in Chile the heart, strength and backing to do it. If they do not do that, the blood which will be shed now and in future in Chile will be partly on their heads.

8.59 p.m.

Mr. John M. Temple (City of Chester): I agree with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State and with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that this is an exceedingly serious debate. I shall endeavour to give what I regard as the true facts of the situation and I shall also meet the constitutional arguments put forward by the Opposition. I hope my arguments will carry conviction.
I have had the good fortune of visiting Latin America frequently in recent years. There is no doubt that it is a continent where violence is endemic. Coups are almost regular there. I agree entirely with the statement of Simon Bolivar, the liberator of the northern parts of Latin America, that Latin America is almost ungovernable. I remember attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference in 1968 in Lima, Peru. The Parliament was in being, at that time, but two weeks later President Belaúnde left in his pyjamas because there was a Left-wing

military coup. At that time, as far as I remember, there were no protests whatever in this House and, as has been said, recognition followed swiftly. I can only conclude that in the event of Left-wing military coups everything is satisfactory as far as the Opposition are concerned.
I was in Chile last year. I know the country only slightly, but I know most of the other countries of Latin America rather better. Chile has a magnificent record of parliamentary democracy. There have been only two other periods when the military took over prior to the takeover on 11th September this year. It is a country unique in Latin America in that it has a strong middle class. It also has non-political armed forces, in contradistinction to many other countries in Latin America. I do not criticise those other countries. Bolivar was right. In many circumstances these countries are becoming ungovernable by democratic means and military governments are perfectly satisfactory. There are many operating perfectly satisfactorily today.
Chile has had a strong connection with our country, dating back to the days of San Martine and Admiral Cochrane. There has been tremendous affiliation between the Chilean Navy and the Royal Navy. Chile is a pleasant country. The middle ground around Santiago is in a temperate part of the world. But Chile is also a country of contrast. It is against this background that I pitch my remarks tonight.
There has been a history of penetration by Communists into South America, particularly since the time of the Spanish Civil War. Cuba has had a Marxist Government for several years but it was not until 1970—I agree with the Opposition about this—that President Allende came to power, on a minority vote, but in a perfectly constitutional manner. However, President Allende was asked to give, and gave, certain important constitutional guarantees. This is the heart of my argument. I regard this question of the constitutional aspect of the Government as being absolutely crucial. The constitutional guarantees, although they were given, were not adhered to. Two particular aspects of the guarantees were flouted by President Allende and decisions of Congress were ignored.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton)


referred to this, but as it is so important I prefer to go into it in rather more detail. I am now talking about the Constitution. Congress decided on 23rd August, by 81 votes to 47, to pass a very important and very critical resolution. I apologise for giving a long quotation, but it puts the case. It says :
The Government of the Republic, since its inception has been engaged in the conquest of total power with the obvious intention of subjecting all persons to the strictest State economic and political control, in order to achieve in this manner the installation of a totalitarian system absolutely opposed to the representative, democratic system established by the Constitution … To accomplish this objective, the Government has not violated the law and the Constitution in isolated instances ; rather, these violations have become permanent policy, to the extent of ignoring and systematically attacking the characteristics of the other branches of the government, and of continually violating the guarantees".
At this juncture, there was this decision of Congress by 81 votes to 47 votes and there was no doubt that President Allende was acting totally unconstitutionally.
The President also gave an undertaking of independence to the Judiciary. Things got worse. The head of the Supreme Court wrote to the President on 26th May about
A crisis in the legal system about which this tribunal cannot be silent.
He went on in a letter of 26th June later made public to say,
The country faces a peremptory and imminent breakdown in the legal system.
This was a most serious state of affairs. This is the back-cloth to the coup which took place on 11th September. All respecters of the Constitution were getting extremely anxious and it was against this background that they recognised that there was this enormous influx of Marxists from other countries.

Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman said he did not know much about Chile. Is he aware that one of the proposals in the Unidad Popular programme dealt with the establishment of what we would call local magistrates' courts? This called for the training as magistrates of ordinary citizens who would therefore be able to play their part in the legal system. Some members of the Supreme Court almost went hysterical. This, they

thought, was the worst possible thing that could happen. When we pointed out that this is what happens in this country they did not understand what we were talking about.

Mr. Temple: The Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what should or should not happen under the constitution.
I had the opportunity of studying the Allende régime to a small extent. I went to a farm near Valparaiso which was in a perfectly shocking state. There was no doubt that agricultural production was dropping on almost every farm throughout Chile because the whole agricultural reform programme was failing. It was for that reason that Chile became a net importer of food under the Allende régime when, prior to that, it has been an exporter of food on a considerable scale. [HON. MEMBERS : "Oh."] I know that the Opposition do not like this but they must listen.
I saw that great port of Valparaiso, built by the first Lord Cowdray when Britain did so much public works construction in Latin-America. I went on the harbour in 1972, and there was hardly a crane operating. There were grain ships anchored off the harbour. There was a scarcity of grain but the ships were incapable of being unloaded and had been there for 30 days. Most of the people in Chile were going short of food. That gives some idea of the shambles developing at that time under the Allende régime.
In the centre of Santiago hardly a day passed without riots of some nature being put down by tear gas by the Government of the day. One almost needed a gas mask in the centre of Santiago. Any Right-wing demonstrations were put down by extremely strong-arm tactics.

Mr. Molloy: Even if there were severe economic troubles, as we are experiencing, for example, or if there were very difficult legal questions perturbing the United States, which general would the hon. Gentleman nominate to take over this country or the United States? In view of the use of force by the Crown, in the use of tear gas in part of the United Kingdom, which admiral does the hon. Gentleman consider should drive out the present Prime Minister, and which general would he suggest to drive out the United States Congress, imitating


the vulgar behaviour of those who did this in Chile?

Mr. Temple: I knew that it was a mistake to give way to the hon. Gentleman, purely because that was exactly my next point.
The situation was escalating towards civil war. I do not rely for my information on the Press. In those circumstances, it became known to those in the armed forces, and generally known afterwards, that there was something called the Z plan. That was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton).

Mrs. Hart: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Temple: No, I have given way several times already. I have spoken to a number of gentlemen who were mentioned in this plan. They and their families were listed for execution under the plan. Many high and other ranking officers would have been shot under the plan. The date for it to be pulled off was 16th September.

Mr. Heffer: That is what Hitler said.

Mr. Temple: Some six days in advance of that plan the military, who have always been strictly non-political, took very swift, decisive and fairly violent action. But there was no doubt that their action was fully justified. I claim support and justification of that statement from the Right Rev. David Pytches, the Bishop of Chile, who gave a very sensible and balanced interview on our radio on 28th October.
I said that the action was fairly violent. I have spoken to people who got caught in the crossfire. Many figures have been thrown around the Chamber tonight about the number of casualties. I have the official figures of casualties. I know that the Opposition do not like the facts.

Mr. Kinnock: This is rubbish.

Mr. Temple: Up to 23rd November, 1,078 people were killed, including 60 military personnel.
Returning to my friend who was caught in the crossfire, naturally, any sensible person in such a position when a military coup is occurring lies on the

ground. My friend did so, with many others. When the shooting finished at the end of the day, they walked away. That is exactly what happened to an enormous number of people. I am surprised that some of the correspondents mistook some of the people who were lying on the ground for dead, when they had not been harmed at all.
If we have to have a debate on what I call a friendly country, a debate which I deplore, the House should be much more concerned, as I am, with the future of that country. We should be concerned for the people of Chile.
I believe that the motion is quite disgraceful in that part of it which begs Her Majesty's Government to withhold aid, as well as to influence World Bank and IMF assistance. It is that foreign aid and assistance, and the re-negotiation of the enormous foreign debts, that is absolutely imperative if the economy of Chile is to get back on to the rails again. If this motion is passed tonight—and I sincerely hope that it will not—the whole economy of Chile will not have a chance of returning to normal.
I must ask my right hon. Friend whether he will consider as soon as possible giving extended ECGD cover, because it is most important that the trade between our two countries is rapidly increased. I can give good reports to the House about the way business is returning to normal, and 70 to 80 per cent. of the people of Chile are now fully behind the present Government. Our aim should be to give maximum encouragement to our good friends in Chile who, at the moment, are in a pretty tight corner.
I entirely support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his action in giving speedy recognition to the Government of Chile. I believe that that was only in accordance with normal practice and was entirely justified. I also believe that the continuation of the sale of arms is entirely justified. In the first part of my speech, I referred to the very long connection between the Chilean Navy and the Royal Navy and, as my right hon. Friend said, if the workers in the shipyards in many parts of the country realised that those orders for submarines and frigates and for the repair of naval vessels might be cancelled, there would be enormous dismay and lobbies coming up to Westminster. Fortunately that will not happen


and we shall continue supplying arms to an essentially friendly country.
I look forward to the time when Chile, with that wonderful record of parliamentary democracy, will be able to resume its position. That frequently happens in Latin America after military coups and I can see no reason why history should not repeat itself. I deplore the fact that the Opposition are playing politics, with a callous disregard for the real welfare and advancement of the people of Chile.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: What a tatty speech that was! I do not think there is anything that the Conservative Party any longer holds sacred, except perhaps the preservation of its own skin. There was not a word of indignation in the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple) about the fact that 20,000 people have been killed in Chile, and not a word of disgust about the fact that 10,000 people are still imprisoned without trial. On the contrary, the hon. Gentleman appeared to be almost rejoicing in the brutality and savagery of the coup. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
There was a time when the Tory Party paid tribute to democracy, and there are very many people in it who still do. But not one Conservative Member has denied that a democratically elected Government was overthrown by a brutal coup. I thought hon. Gentlemen opposite would have been delighted that, in a part of South America which is known not for electing Governments but for having Governments imposed upon it, there was in existence a Government which the people of Chile had elected and re-elected. Tory Members do not seem to worry one jot about that. It may well be true that the Chilean Government was not the best Government in the world, but neither is our Government here. Bad as the present Government are, I have never heard it suggested that they should be overthrown by the Armed Forces.
I was delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) refer to the fact that in Chile under Allende there had been a strike. I have news for the right hon. Gentleman. There will not be any more

strikes under the present Government, because they will not be allowed. That is the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. The Minister made a cheap point about how we would feel in this country if there were criticisms by another nation of our treatment, for instance of IRA internees. In this House, to our credit, we have spent a great deal of time debating how we should give the fairest possible trial to people accused of crimes in that very sad country in these disturbed times. We do not shoot people, murder them and imprison them without trial. That is the difference. The Minister well knew that he was making a false point.
One of the people in the Conservative Party for whom I had much admiration before the war was a man who recognised, a long time before other people, the horrors of what was happening in Nazi Germany, and to his credit he spoke up about them. I refer to Leopold Amery. I am very sorry that his son, whom I like and respect personally, and who is a most courteous man, did not recognise that in Chile a decent, democratically elected Government who were trying their best to distribute wealth in favour of the peasants, workers and poor people had been ousted by a ruthless, corrupt dictatorship which in every sense including book burning, was reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Harold Soref: Having listened to the entire debate, I have been struck by two things. The first is the remarkable euphemistic and evasive apologia for Allende, a man who brought his country to absolute ruin, chaos and abject poverty to a degree that the Lord Balogh, who was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) and who was a former adviser to the Labour Government when writing in the Evening Standard during the time of the Blackpool Labour Party Conference this year referred to the Allende regime as a warning to the faithful and pointed out the dangers of his canonisation.
The other matter which is so remarkable is that Labour Members regard themselves as the custodians of parliamentary government. This is extraordinary. At the Blackpool conference


this year, in their "Labour programme for Britain 1973," they supported a resolution saying :
Labour therefore supports the liberation movements in all the territories of Southern Africa in their just struggle".
The liberation struggle in Southern Africa was for the same ends as Tupomaros, Allende and other revolutionaries fought. It is for that reason that, together with so many other people in this country, I am apprehensive about the possibility—

Mr. Kinnock: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Soref: No. I am sorry, but my time is so short. I am apprehensive about the Chilean and other South American refugees coming to this country. Those who seek to come to this country as political refugees are not Chileans but originate from other South American States. They could all go to Cuba but none of them is acceptable in his own country. In the present climate of revolutionary activity in Britain today, it would be courting disaster to bring more people here who might constitute a security risk. Therefore I appeal to my right hon. Friend to think twice before he introduces any of these revolutionaries into this country.
I believe that Chile is rapidly becoming the whipping boy of the Left, with the Morning Star as the mouthpiece of the campaign in which the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) has played a most distinctive part and has performed at Trafalgar Square with Mr. Gollan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, pleading the case of the Communists in Chile. It is becoming a joint platform of the extreme Left for reasons best known to themselves.
As for Mrs. Allende, until she went to Mexico she maintained that her late husband had committed suicide. It was only after her visit to Mexico that she changed her tune.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Mr. Clinton Davis rose—

Mr. Soref: I cannot give way. I must be brief. It is most significant that no one has mentioned that two months before the coup the Supreme Court of Justice in Chile declared the rule of law no longer to exist and the Chamber of Deputies declared the same and urged the military

to restore it. They had no alternative unless there was to be another Cuba. If they had not acted they would have had their throats cut. There would have been a night of the long knives and the murder of the naval officers at the Valparaiso garrison.
What of British opinion in Chile? I have been privileged to meet several people from Chile who have visited this country since the coup. I also read in The Guardian a letter from the head of the British community of Valparaiso. It seems that both the British community there and most certainly the British Chamber of Commerce in Santiago are wholly sympathetic to the disappearance of the Marxist Government. What is not altogether surprising is that the Liberal Provost of Greenock went to the Ministry of Defence last week pleading for more orders for naval craft for Chile in order to keep the people of Greenock employed.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) referred to the dockers coming out over shipments to Valparaiso. Would he support an embargo on goods going to Red China where more than 20 million people have been massacred? Would he support an embargo on goods to West Africa where many more people were killed in the fighting between the Biafrans and the Nigerians? This is just another manifestation of double standards. The hon. Member and his hon. Friends take the attitude they do merely because Chile is white and capitalist. Why otherwise should this venom be directed against Chile?
I accept that in every revolution there must be cruelty and barbarism. I cannot countenance everything that has happened. But what was done anticipated a far worse holocaust, which would have occurred if the Cubans and the local Marxist mercenaries from Uruguay, Argentine, Bolivia and Colombia had been able to take over. That has been shown by the arms and the detailed alphabetical lists of people marked for assassination.
I plead with my right hon. Friend that the people of this country should be protected, that none of those who have been actively engaged in Marxist activity, particularly those known to be Tupamaros—there was a camp for them in the north of Chile—should be allowed to enter this country.

Mr. Whitehead: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Soref: I am sorry, no. I am about to conclude.
It was revealed in the House last week that 50 students were coming from Chile to this country. Yesterday we learned, in an answer to a Question of mine, that the figure had been increased to 70 in the last quarter of the year. Other Chileans have been coming into this country as students. Who will pay their maintenance? What are they supposed to do here? What security have we for their behaviour? [Interruption.] They should go to Cuba. Cuba is the only country anxious to take them, they are in political liaison with Cuba, and that is their natural home.

9.32 p.m.

Mrs. Hart: With permission, I should like to make a brief reply to the debate.
I have been a Member of the House for 14 years and I have never heard such Fascism crawling out from under the stones of this place as I have heard tonight. If I were in the Minister's position, I should not welcome the support from his hon. Friends. We have had the Portuguese lobby and the Rhodesian lobby. Now we have a new lobby—the Chilean Embassy lobby, the new Chilean Embassy lobby.
It is remarkable—the right hon. Gentleman should consider his attitude in this light—that not one of his right hon. or hon. Friends has in any way represented even part of the point of view he presented earlier. We have not heard condemnations of the coup. We have not heard condemnations of the murders and brutalities. There has not been even a word of regret that a country with a 140-year tradition of democracy has been destroyed. Therefore, I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman over the support he has had from his right hon. and hon. Friends.
We have heard a unanimity of briefing from Miss Lucia Santa Cruz before she returned to Chile, a unanimity of briefing provided by El Mercurio, which has a managing director who is now the Minister of Economics in the junta.
I know perfectly well that when the Minister gives us his analysis of what led up to the coup in July we shall have

from him also the El Mercurio representation we heard all the time in the embassy drawing rooms in Santiago. Those drawing rooms, certainly in the British Embassy, hardly knew a single Socialist of the Allende Government. When I was there and our former ambassador, for whom I have no word of disrespect, came with me to meet Ministers and officials in the Allende Government, he expressed his gratitude because it was the first time, after a year, that he had been able to meet members of the Popular Unity Government.
That is the background of the kind of information we have. There is a terrible polarisation now represented in what is being said in Britain. It is not that there are or have been in Chile two sets of judgments on the same facts ; it is that there have always been two sets of facts, the real ones and those of the Right wing, which is what we have heard poured out tonight.
When Conservative Members talk of the letters they have received from friends in Chile giving them the true position, do they know that the junta has asked its friends in Chile—this is reported in most of the foreign Press—to write to their friends in Britain, and has given them the material to do it. That was why we have had unanimity of facts. It was remarkable. There was no variation in the so-called facts. We saw the usual Fascist propaganda machine begin to operate. Unfortunately, we are now hearing it represented in this House.
Unless the Minister has something new to say to us, it will not seem that the Government have taken one step forward. So far the Government have merely confirmed the attitudes which we deplore and condemn. On the future extension of credit the Minister justifies the Government's attitude. On refugees he seeks justification. On precedent he talks of the different interpretations of the Vienna Convention.
Of all the countries concerned, including Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, I take it that we are to assume that Britain is the only country with the correct interpretation. Are we to understand that Britain is the only country which is right and that our fellow members of the EEC and the other countries of Western Europe are wrong? Are


only we right in denying refuge, humanity and decency to those in Chile who face death, torture and brutality?
We have heard about the "Z plan" and about constitutionality. Conservative Members may not be aware of one of the latest acts of the military regime—namely, the abandonment of the last vestige of democracy in Chile. It has abandoned the constitutional council. Is that an act of constitutionality? Is it an act of constitutionality to suspend the constitution and to say that it cannot be restored in less than eight months?
If Conservative Members are right and the Allende Government represented a minority vote, like many Governments elsewhere which have been democratically elected, does that mean that Allende was unpopular and that the Right-wing friends of Conservative Members were the popular leaders? Can they explain why the junta does not dare to return to constitutionality and democracy? If that was the position, they have nothing to fear and no need to murder people or lock them up and torture them.
We have heard tonight that the coup is justified, that murders are justified and that brutality, torture and the overthrow of democracy are justified. I am not talking about the Minister's speech. We were shocked enough by what the right hon. Gentleman had to say, but by comparison with his right hon. and hon. Friends he shines out like an angel of virtue. When I make my criticisms I am not talking about the Minister.
We have heard some Conservative Members express views that would justify at any time the overthrow of democracy in this country. They have said that, if Governments get into economic difficulty and if Governments do not do what they believe is right, it is right and justifiable to overthrow them by military force and to commit acts of depravity such as those which have been committed in Chile. That is the view of some Conservative hon. Members. [HON. MEMBERS : "Where are the Liberals?"] It is remarkable that no Liberal Members have been present during the whole of the debate.
I remind the House of what Salvador Allende believed that he and his Government stood for. I quote from the last speech he made when the bombs were

dropping on the Monade Palace from, of course, Hawker Siddeley aircraft. [HON. MEMBERS : "HOW many?"] Enough to destroy it. Salvador Allende said :
History is ours. It is the people who make it … I am speaking first to the modest woman of our land, to the peasant woman who believed in us, to the work-woman who was working more, to the mother who knew that we cared about her children. I am speaking to the members of the liberal professions who behaved as patriots … I am speaking to the young people, to those who sang, to those who gave their joy and their spirit of struggle. I am speaking to the man of Chile, to the worker, to the peasant, to the intellectual, to those who will be persecuted… Workers of my country : I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other Chileans will come. In these dark and bitter moments, where treachery claims to impose itself, you must know that sooner or later, and very soon, large avenues will open again for men worthy of building a new society.
We on this side believe in democracy. We happen to be Socialists who believe in democracy. We are prepared to ally ourselves in our faith in democracy with Conservatives who believe in democracy. But we are not prepared to ally ourselves with those Conservatives who have spoken for their party tonight.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. Amery: By leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, I will try to reply to the speeches made in what I think will be regarded as a memorable debate in which deep feelings have been expressed on both sides of the House.
The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) asked about the case of Mr. Tomic. I have been in touch with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. He is more than willing to consider the case sympathetically and sees no reason to think that there is any obstacle to granting permanent settlement to him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Soref) asked about the Chilean students. During September, 22 were admitted to the United Kingdom. They will have satisfied immigration officers of their acceptability and their means of support. The figures for October are not yet available.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) asked about Mr. Oscar Weiss, editor of La Naciòn. Our ambassador asked the Chilean Government about him at our request. He is detained in the Military Academy at Santiago and is to be tried by civil court. The Chilean


Ministry of Foreign Affairs has assured us that he is well.
The right hon. Lady asked about two grants to students which she thought had been withdrawn. We will inquire into these cases and write to her as soon as we have more information about them.
The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) asked me about the case of a Mr. Gatehouse who was detained. It was after representations by our embassy about him that he was released. It is fair to add that if we had not maintained diplomatic relations, he would not have been released.
My hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) asked about the status of seven Chileans and the one Bolivian who came here as a result of sponsorship by Professor Stafford Beer of Manchester University. They are not refugees. They have simply qualified to come here in the ordinary way. They would have been allowed in equally before the revolution. They are academics qualified in business management and they wanted to come here because their jobs came to an end when Professor Beer's job came to an end. They have no history of political activity and they have been accepted as perfectly respectable immigrants. Four have come here so far, one has gone to Canada and the others are awaiting passage here.
The right hon. Lady suggested that our embassy in Santiago was out of touch. It is often the case with Left-wing Governments that it is only when distinguished visitors from either party, like the right hon. Lady or myself, go out that contact is easily made.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) made a speech which, although I did not altogether agree with it, I admired for its forcefulness and oratory. He took me to task for having concentrated earlier today on the motion.
I thought that it would be better, knowing the way this House never fails to produce a large number of people on both sides with a good deal of knowledge, to let them all express their view on what was happening in Chile before I tried to contribute my inevitably modest but reasonably well-informed contribution from the Foreign Office. It might be helpful if I say something about the

way in which we in the Foreign Office saw the matter.
This summer when I went out to Lima to meet our ambassadors from the Andean Pact countries—I also went to Buenos Aires for the inauguration of President Campora and during that visit I had the opportunity to talk to President Allende in Buenos Aires—it was pretty clear to me that events in Chile were moving towards crisis. Some of the symptoms of the crisis were described by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple).
There was an unprecedented rate of inflation but, as the hon. Member for Walton said, for the first time in Chilean history the poorer people had been eating and wages had been raised. This was quite true of the first year of the Allende Government, but unfortunately the advantages gained in the early period under his régime had been largely wiped out by the summer of this year. The Government was a minority Government, constitutionally elected—indeed, the Conservatives have been in power in a similar situation so I do not complain about that—but it was in a head-on collision with Congress and was in default of the guarantees given by the President when he was first elected.
Furthermore, there were serious shortages of food. The queues were measured by own our representatives in Santiago as of a hundred yards in length and more. A number of Ministers were the subject of impeachment procedures. I have no doubt that some Labour Members might wish to adopt a similar procedure in respect of me, but in Chile no doubt this avoided a reshuffle—which can happen on all sides of the House at any time.
Law and order had fallen into a pretty serious condition. There were, as my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester said, a number of riots and disturbances in the towns and in the countryside. Property had been taken over and broken up without compensation and without the approval of the Government. The law courts brought in verdicts which were not always upheld by the executive. The President was protected by a Cuban guard. Arms were coming into the country in quite large quantities to arm para-military forces, some of which were foreign, though


admittedly a large number were Cuban. They may well have been maintained and raised for defensive purposes.
I am not trying to pass judgment, but that is as we saw the situation in the Foreign Office. It was also the situation seen by people in Peruvian Government circles, who are not Right-wing, and people in Peronista circles in Argentina. Some people thought that there would be a complete takeover by the two Marxist forces in President Allende's Government, the Communists and the Socialists. This was encouraged, as I understand it, by President Allende's own party, by the MIR and by President Castro. There were others who thought that a military coup would take place, but the armed forces were reluctant. It is interesting to remember that the leaders of the armed forces served in the Allende Government and that the present Foreign Minister, Admiral Huerta, was a Minister of State in that Government for some time.
The most hopeful exercise was that there might be a compromise with the Christian Democrat Opposition. Interestingly enough, this was advocated by the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Senor Corvalan, perhaps because he realised the dangers of pressing matters too far in one of the American continents. But the compromise attempt failed. From that moment in the late summer there was almost public discussion to the effect that civil war was looming, and people were asking themselves who would strike first.
I am reporting only what we saw and what every observer on the scene will confirm. The question was who would strike first. The military side struck first and, because of that, a heavy responsibility lies upon them for the bloodshed and repression which resulted from their action. But we have to remember that they knew that the forces opposed to them were also very well armed, and they would have claimed in exoneration if not in justification that if they had not struck hard there could well have been civil war.
The right hon. Member for Lanark and the hon. Member for Walton went into some detail about the casualties that resulted. The hon. Gentleman also went into great detail about the Newsweek

report. I have to say to him that the report which he gave the House has been dismissed by the New York Times. A report after a thorough investigation by one of that newspaper's staff seems to me a good deal more reliable than the comments of the anonymous daughter of a mortuary attendant, on which the Newsweek articles were originally based.

Mrs. Hart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what he is giving the House is precisely El Mercurio's version of events and precisely the junta's version, and that the House would like to hear some difference between his account and that of the junta if he is to be more convincing? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the efforts to reach a compromise between the Allende Government and the Christian Democrats were continuing the day before the coup, that 14 leading Christian Democrats had agreed to a compromise, and that that is one reason why the coup occurred next day?

Mr. Amery: It is not for me to pass judgment on the internal manoeuvres which preceded the coup.
I hope that what I have said will convince the House that it would be a mistake—[Interruption.] I am asking right hon. and hon. Members to accept that the analysis that I have given shows that it would be a mistake either to compare Senor Allende with the Leader of the Liberal Party in this House or to regard him as a Communist conspirator, and that equally it would be a mistake to regard the military simply as Fascists, bearing in mind the co-operation which they gave Senor Allende.
I think that this House would be very well advised to remember the precept of Lord Acton, the historian, who said that most conflicts were not conflicts between right and wrong but between right and right.
The events in Chile raise important issues in a context of a wider character which affects the whole question of coexistence and détente.
The hon. Member for Walton said that democracy was indivisible. Alas, this is not absolutely clear. The Marxists have accepted that they can come to power by constitutional means—this is a step forward—but their theorists still proclaim


from Moscow and elsewhere that, once established, the process of a Marxist State is irreversible and that this is the justification of the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat.
It was the doctrine laid down by Lenin when he said :
No Marxist, without renouncing the principles of Marxism and of Socialism generally, can deny that the interests of Socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination.
It is a long time since Lenin, but this was repeated in Moscow in 1971 by Academician Kovalev, who said :
To permit a free play of all political forces in the Soviet countries under today's conditions would mean the suicide of Socialism.
Senor Corvalan, the Secretary-General of the Chilean Communist Party, on 13th January 1971 made the following statement :
The Chilean people must now consolidate their victory and advance further so that the whole of the political and state apparatus will come into their hands. The situation is certainly not yet irreversible but it is up to us to make it irreversible.
We here accept the idea that the parties in the House of Commons alternate in government. The hon. Member for Walton said that we were democrats only when we were winning. This is not true. We have accepted changes of power—Socialists or Conservatives coming into power—in 1945, 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970. But the Marxist parties do not accept this process. In a country where it is known that a Government, once in power, will never give way again, we must not be surprised if the military draw their own conclusions.

Mr. Heffer: Mr. Heffer rose—

Mr. Amery: What is worse is that the leaders of the Soviet Union, in both 1956 and 1967, have claimed that because Socialism must be irreversible other

Socialist countries are authorised to intervene to preserve Socialism.

The motion produces what I might call an attenuated Brezhnev doctrine, under which they would impose sanctions on Chile to restore the Allende Government.

There is a final reason why I condemn the motion. The proper business of the Government is to protect British interests and promote British business. These matters, not the sharpening of disputes, are our duty. The Opposition have sought to import the Chilean dispute into British public life, into the House, the country and the trade unions. Students of foreign affairs know that when Governments are in trouble they often seek to divert attention from their problems by raising external issues. This is also true of Oppositions.

Mr. Walter Harrison: Mr. Walter Harrison (Wakefield) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly,
That this House deeply deplores the armed overthrow of democracy in Chile, and condemns the continuing murder, torture and imprisonments carried out by the military junta; regrets the hasty recognition of the new regime by Her Majesty's Government; and, bearing in mind the strength of feeling in Great Britain, now condemns the refusal of the Government to offer refuge in its Embassy in Santiago to those in danger of their lives, in sharp and deplorable contrast to other Western European embassies, and calls on the Foreign Secretary to issue fresh instructions to our Ambassador, to press for the immediate release of all political prisoners and an end to executions, to prevent any sale of arms from Great Britain to the junta, to ensure that refuge in Great Britain is provided for Chileans who seek it, and to withhold future aid and credits from the present Chilean régime; and to use his influence to ensure that World Bank and IMF assistance is also withheld.
The House divided : Ayes 262, Noes 280.

Division No. 14.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Beith, A. J.
Buchan, Norman


Albu, Austen
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Bidwell, Sydney
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Bishop, E. S.
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James


Armstrong, Ernest
Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Ashley, Jack
Booth, Albert
Cant, R. B.


Ashton, Joe
Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)


Atkinson, Norman
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Bradley, Tom
Clark, David (Colne Valley)


Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)
Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)


Baxter, William
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Cohen, Stanley


Beaney, Alan
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)
Coleman, Donald




Concannon, J. 0.
Janner, Greville
Pardoe, John


Conian, Bernard
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Pavitt, Laurie


Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Cronin, John
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Pendry, Tom


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
John, Brynmor
Perry, Ernest G.


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.


Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Prescott, John


Dalyell, Tam
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Price, William (Rugby)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Probert, Arthur


Davidson, Arthur
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Radice, Giles


Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Reed, D. (Sedgefield)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Judd, Frank
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Kaufman, Gerald
Richard, Ivor


Deakins, Eric
Kelley, Richard
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Kerr. Russell
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Delargy, Hugh
Kinnock, Neil
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Dempsey, James
Lambie, David
Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&R'dnor)


Doig, Peter
Lamborn, Harry
Roper, John


Dormand, J. D.
Latham, Arthur
Rose, Paul B.


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lawson, George
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Leadbitter, Ted
Rowlands, Ted


Driberg, Tom
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Sandelson, Neville


Duffy, A. E. P.
Leonard, Dick
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Dunn, James A.
Lestor, Miss Joan
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Dunnett, Jack
Lewis Ron (Carlisle)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Eadle, Alex
Lipton, Marcus
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton. N. E.)


Edelman, Maurice
Lomas, Kenneth
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Loughlin, Charles
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Sillars, James


Ellis, Tom
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Silverman, Julius


English, Michael
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Skinner, Dennis


Evans, Fred
McBride, Neil
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Ewing, Harry
MacDonald, Mrs. Margo
Spearing, Nigel


Faulds, Andrew
McElhone, Frank
Spriggs, Leslie


Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
McGuire, Michael
Stallard A. W.


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Machin, George
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Foot, Michael
Mackie, John
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Forrester, John
Maclennan, Robert
Stott, Roger


Fraser, John (Norwood)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Strang, Gavin


Freeson, Reginald
McNamara, J. Kevin
Strauss Rt. Hn. G. R.


Galpern, Sir Myer
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Garrett, W. E.
Mallalieu, J P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Swain Thomas


Gilbert, Dr. John
Marks, Kenneth
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)
Marquand, David
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Marsden, F.
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Gourlay, Harry
Marshall, Dr. Edmund
Tinn, James


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mayhew, Christopher
Tomney, Frank


Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)
Meacher, Michael
Tope, Graham


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Torney, Tom


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Mendelson, John
Tuck, Raphael


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mikardo, Ian
Urwin, T. W.


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Millan Bruce
Varley, Eric G.


Hamling, William
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)


Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)
Milne, Edward
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hardy, Peter
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Wallace, George


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Molloy, William
Watkins, David


Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Weitzman, David


Hattersley, Roy
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Hatton, F.
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Whitehead, Phillip


Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Whitlock, William


Heffer, Eric S.
Moyle, Roland
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Hilton, W. S.
Murray, Ronald King
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Hooson, Emlyn
Oakes, Gordon
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Horam, John
Ogden, Eric
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
O'Halloran, Michael
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
O'Malley, Brian
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Huckfield, Leslie
Oram, Bert
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Orme, Stanley
Woof, Robert


Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Oswald, Thomas



Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES :


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Paget, R. T.
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Hunter, Adam
Palmer, Arthur
Mr. John Golding


Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles





NOES


Adley, Robert
Atkins, Humphrey
Bell, Ronald


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Benyon, W.


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Biffen, John


Astor, John
Batsford, Brian
Biggs-Davison, John







Blaker, Peter
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Neave, Airey


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Body, Richard
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Noble, Rt. Hn Michael


Boscawen, Hn. Robert
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Normanton, Tom


Bowden, Andrew
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Nott, John


Braine, Sir Bernard
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Onslow, Cranley


Bray, Ronald
Haselhurst, Alan
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Havers, Sir Michael
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Hawkins, Paul
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Hayhoe, Barney
Parkinson, Cecil


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Percival, Ian


Bryan, Sir Paul
Heseltine, Michael
Peyton, Rt. Hn. John


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)
Hicks, Robert
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Buck, Antony
Higgins, Terence L.
Pink, R. Bonner


Bullus, Sir Eric
Hiley, Joseph
Pounder, Rafton


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)
Hill, S. James A. (Southampton, Test)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Carlisle, Mark
Holland, Philip
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Holt, Miss Mary
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Cary, Sir Robert
Hordern, Peter
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Channon, Paul
Hornby, Richard
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Chapman, Sydney
Hornsby-Smith. Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Raison, Timothy


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Chichester-Clark, R.
Howell, David (Guildford)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Churchill, W. S.
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Redmond, Robert


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Hunt, John
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rees, Peter (Dover)


Cockeram, Eric
Iremonger, T. L.
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Cooke, Robert
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Cordle, John
James, David
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick
Jenkin, Rt. Hn. Patrick (Woodford)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Cormack, Patrick
Jessel, Toby
Ridsdale, Julian


Costain, A. P.
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey


Critchley, Julian
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Crowder, F. P.
Jopling, Michael
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Rost, Peter


d'Avigdor-Goldsmld. MaJ.-Gen. Jack
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Royle, Anthony


Dean, Paul
Kershaw, Anthony
Russell, Sir Ronald


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Kimball, Marcus
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Digby, Simon Wingfield
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Sainsbury, Tim


Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Scott, Nicholas


Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Kinsey, J. R.
Scott-Hopkins, James


Drayson, Burnaby
Kirk, Peter
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)


Dykes, Hugh
Kitson, Timothy
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Eden, Rt. Hn Sir John
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Shersby, Michael


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Lamont, Norman
Simeons, Charles


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Lane, David
Sinclair, Sir George


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'le-upon-Tyne. N.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Skeet, T. H. H.


Emery, Peter
Le Marchant, Spencer
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)


Eyre, Reginald
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Soref, Harold


Farr, John
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'field)
Speed, Keith


Fell, Anthony
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Spence, John


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Longden, Sir Gilbert
Sproat, lain


Fidler, Michael
Loveridge, John
Stainton, Keith


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Luce, R. N.
Stanbrook, Ivor


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)
MacArthur, Ian
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
McCrindle, R. A.
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Fookes, Miss Janet
McMaster, Stanley
Sutcliffe, John


Fortescue, Tim
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Tapsell, Peter


Foster, Sir John
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Fowler, Norman
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Fox, Marcus
Madel, David
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)
Maginnis, John E.
Tebbit, Norman


Fry Peter
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Temple, John M.


Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.
Marten, Neil
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Gardner, Edward
Mather, Carol
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Gibson-Watt, David
Maude, Angus
Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Mawby, Ray
Tilney, Sir John


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Trew, Peter


Goodhart, Philip
Miscampbell, Norman
Tugendhat, Christopher


Goodhew, Victor
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C.(Aberdeenshire, W)
Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin


Gorst, John
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Gower, Raymond
Moate, Roger
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Molyneaux, James
Vickers, Dame Joan


Gray, Hamish
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Waddington, David


Green, Alan
Monro, Hector
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Grieve, Percy
Montgomery, Fergus
Wall, Patrick


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
More, Jasper
Walters, Dennis


Grylls, Michael
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Ward, Dame Irene


Gummer, J. Selwyn
Morrison, Charles
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Gurden, Harold
Mudd, David
White, Roger (Gravesend)







Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
TELLERS FOR THE NOES :


Wiggin, Jerry
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Mr. Walter Clegg and


Wilkinson, John
Younger, Hn. George
Mr. Bernard Weatherill

Question accordingly negatived.

Orders of the Day — CHARLWOOD AND HORLEY BILL

Ordered,

That Mr. R. C. Mitchell be discharged from the Select Committee on the Charlwood and Horley Bill and that Mr. Thomas Oswald be added.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]

AGRICULTURE

10.14 p.m.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: A critical situation has developed in the agricultural industry over the last 12 months, mainly as a result of the exceptional increase in the cost of feeding stuffs. We have had some exchanges on the subject at Question Time, but the implications of the problem for the industry, for the consumer and for the national economy are such that I felt it essential that the House should have the opportunity of a fuller discussion. I regret that this will be such a short debate, because I know that many hon. Members would like to speak on the subject.
I do not believe that any over-statement of the case will help the industry or anyone else. I do not want the charge levelled at me that I started Mr. Wallace Day marching again. If he marches when the interest rate is 7 per cent., one can only assume that when it is up to 13 per cent. he is too stunned to rise from his chair.
Let us look, therefore, at the facts and the general implications, and the Government's reactions to them· In a Written Answer to me on 9th October, the Under-Secretary gave details of the average cost of feeding stuffs, for each October since 1970· For cattle and calf, they were £42·30 per ton in October 1970 and £70·80 per ton in October this year· The figures for pigs were £44·80 and £83·10, and for poultry they were £47·50 and £87·30· The big increase has taken place during the last 12 months· The Prime Minister was mistaken when he told me at Question Time on 15th November that the increase over the last year was 50 per cent· It was about 80 per cent· He was wrong to say that I was exaggerating the position when I said that costs had nearly doubled in three years· It was the Prime Minister himself who was underestimating the gravity of the position·
Furthermore, it is misleading and wrong to argue, as Ministers have argued, that the increase is due solely to the increase in import prices. That is a major factor in the sum, but it is not the whole truth. The cost of sugar beet pulp, for example, which is produced in this country, has also risen. It was £22 per ton in October 1970 and £43 per ton last October. When I asked the Minister about this on 12th November, he gave a remarkable reply. He said that the British Sugar Corporation, as an independent company,
is free to determine its selling prices subject to the requirements of the counter-inflation programme. It
—that is, the corporation—
has concluded that sugar beet pulp falls within the group of agricultural products on which price increases do not have to be notified to the Price Commission.
The Minister then said
The corporation has, however, informed the commission of its action and is making returns of its profit margins."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th November 1973; Vol. 864, c. 45–46.]
It seems, therefore, that the corporation, regardless of phase 2 and phase 3, can do just what it likes. The corporation's actions should be scrutinised carefully. I hope that the Minister will say this evening that this will be done forthwith.
I turn to the effect of the increase on the agricultural industry and its prospects for the future. The Government are committed to a policy of expansion. I believe that that is right. Our membership of the Community and our worsening balance of payments difficulties make it imperative that expansion should continue.
Production and productivity in the industry since the end of the war has been impressive. It has increased net output by an average of 4 per cent. per annum in recent years. If it can be encouraged to continue it will make significant contributions towards resolving our overseas payments problems. A loss of momentum or a cut-back in production will not only worsen this problem but will also result in further increases in food prices. That is something which hon. Members representing urban constituencies will wish to bear in mind.
Let me give one significant figure. In the first nine months of this year imports of food and feeding stuffs amounted to £2,000 million, nearly 18 per cent. of our total import bill. In the corresponding period last year, it was just over £1,500 million. The importance of increased home production is, therefore, evident to every hon. Member.
I understand that the Minister has accepted that the livestock and milk producers are in difficulty but that the Government are looking at the industry as a whole and that the general level of profitability is good. But the Minister knows perfectly well that this argument is very weak. The livestock sector, which accounts for 70 per cent. of our total agricultural and horticultural output, is the one which has been directly injured by the rise in feed prices. What he is saying, in effect, is that cereal farmers have done well and therefore the industry is doing well. That is the weakness of the Government's argument at present. That is nonsense, and the Minister of State knows it perfectly well.
Two-thirds of all milk producers grow no cereals and the same is true of many pig producers. The Minister knows that about 80 per cent. of the dairy cows in England and Wales are held on specialist dairy and mainly dairy farms, and that all these farms account for only 14 per cent. of the cereals acreage. These farmers are dependent on bought-in feed and they have not benefited from high cereal prices. As hon. Members know, milk is the most important single commodity produced on our farms and accounts for more than 20 per cent. of the returns from farm sales. The Milk Marketing Board has stated recently that the margin per cow is 60 per cent. below that for 1972–73, and in real terms this is the lowest since the end of the last war.
In the last Annual Price Review, prices for milk were fixed on the assumption that feed prices were expected to fall. That was the assumption on which the Minister and his hon. Friends based their calculations. In fact, there has been this astronomic rise, and if we look at costs for the current year I do not think I shall be far short if I say that they will be around £500 million—possibly a little more. The mind boggles. I used to worry in 1970 when costs were around £60 million. I am surprised that the

Minister of State has any hair at all on his head when he contemplates the position. But of this figure of £500 million, about £400 million relates to feed costs alone, and I think that puts in perspective the problem which we are discussing.
The Minister of State may still try to argue that the industry has done well and should absorb the costs. My reply to him is that any increase in the average income is on the cereals and not on the livestock side. If he is to sustain this argument, he must tell the House what he estimates the increased income will be not only in the cereals sector but in the livestock sector and the milk sector separately.
I should also like him to comment specifically on the effect of phase 3 on dairy producers. As I understand it—and I am open to correction, because I am not in possession of the facts which the Minister of State has at his disposal —controlled reduction of manufacturers' profit margins by refusing price increases is limited to 10 per cent. Yet dairy producers will have their profit margins cut by 60 per cent. following feed increases which have been approved by the Price Commission. Does he think that that will encourage the expansion about which the Government have been talking for the last three years?
I have met the dairy farmers of Anglesey and spoken to many others in various parts of England and Wales, and I am bound to say to hon. Members on all sides of the House that they are deeply worried men. The vast majority, in response to exhortations from the Minister of State and his right hon. Friend and Ministers from the Scottish Department of Agriculture, have ploughed back their profits into the business so that they can achieve the expansion for which they have been persuaded to aim. Many have borrowed money to improve their farms and, with interest at 13 per cent., how does the Minister of State expect them to live, let alone have confidence in the Government?
I have met young farmers, and especially small and medium farmers in Wales, who are desperately worried about their position. It is a classic example of falling, and in many cases non-existent, profits, and that discourages


investment—a situation which phase 3 is supposed to avoid. The national beef and dairy herd has been growing satisfactorily over the last 10 years, and this is a policy to which all parties in the House have subscribed. It would be a major tragedy if there were now a reversal, at the very moment when an advance is essential for all the reasons I have given.
The position of pig producers is also serious. It has been estimated that by next month the net margin of pig producers will have fallen by less than half of what it was in 1972–73. Pig slaughterings have increased ominously and the future there does not look bright at all. I am sure that the Minister does not want to see a cut-back in production, but he has been making some over-optimistic statements. Both he and the Prime Minister have refused to accept the need for interim measures to help livestock farmers over the immediate crisis. I understand that he is to speed up the review procedure this year, and perhaps he will say a word about it. It will, however, not help solve the problem. It is not enough for him to say that he is now precluded from introducing a special review, which is what he and the Prime Minister have said to farmers' representatives. There is nothing to prevent him bringing forward special measures to meet a critical situation. A short-term subsidy to meet quite exceptional circumstances could not be objected to in Brussels or anywhere else.
Would the Minister say a word about farm costs in relation to the Fourchette arrangements? Would he agree that costs are now so enormous that the amount needed to recompense them is greater than the steps which we are allowed to take under Fourchette? Is it not essential that he should now do something so that his freedom of manoeuvre at the Annual Price Review is not constrained by Brussels? This is an important point and we shall watch the position carefully.
I hope I have said enough to prove that a good deal is at stake in this feed crisis : the expansion programme of the livestock sector, the livelihood of the farmer, the cost of food to the consumer and the industry's contribution to the

balance of payments. I do not want to undermine confidence in the industry by anything that I say. I know to my cost how much confidence was damaged by some hon. Members opposite when I was Minister of Agriculture, and I do not want to repeat the mistake which they made. I have felt it my duty to lay the facts before the House, and I hope the Minister will be able to announce some constructive interim measure which will set the industry on course once again.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I intervene briefly to support my right hon. Friend in his concern for the plight of the dairy farmer in many parts of the country, and particularly in North-West Wales. He and I represent adjacent farming counties in which the milk producer is a very important person indeed.
Like him, in the last few weeks, I have received deputations and have met the unions on the question of the escalating prices of feeding stuffs and the swingeing increases in overdraft charges from which so many dairy farmers in particular suffer. It is true that the farming community as a whole has suffered from increased production costs and from the rise in bank charges, but the housewife has come to the rescue over most of them in that she has paid greatly increased prices for food, so that as a whole the farming community has not suffered to anything like the degree that the milk producer suffers. While the charges in every respect have gone up in his case, his net receipt for milk has hardly changed. Certainly in the last year it has hardly moved.
I think the figures given to me by the Minister of State on 6th November are very revealing on this point. He said, as reported in c. 124 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 6th November this year, that the average net price for milk received by wholesale producers in the United Kingdom in 1972–73 was 20·2p per gallon and in 1973–74 the forecast was 21·7p. The average cost of dairy feed stuffs in Great Britain was £50·5 per ton and the cost projected for 1973–74 was £56·3.
His projection is therefore that there will be an increase of about 11 per cent. in the next six months in the cost of feeding stuffs to the producer but that


there will be a net increase in receipts of only 7 per cent. per gallon of milk. He will therefore fall behind increasingly during that period.
Ministers have expressed the hope and belief that in the next six months world conditions will improve so that more cereals will be available at a lower price. However, their projection as given to me in that answer suggests that in spite of the prediction of better world conditions, dairy farmers will face an increase of as much as 11 per cent. That point is causing dairy farmers a great deal of concern.

10.31 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Will my hon. Friend the Minister answer two questions which will interest farmers generally? First, has he taken into account not the immediate future but the long-term outlook for liquid milk should the producers allow the size of their herds to run down? Secondly, has the Department calculated what would be the percentage rise in the cost of living if the retail price of milk rose by ½p a pint?

10.33 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: I rise to support my right hon. Friend with some concrete figures which I think will interest the Minister. These figures have been calculated and checked by ICI and compare October this year with October last year. For the 100-cow herd, milk last year was 8,530 gallons ; this year 8,445—less than 100 difference. Price last year was 22·41p ; last year 24·27p—less than 2p difference. That 2p was meant to cover the price rises before the price review and the Minister knows well enough the enormous increase that has taken place since the price review over and above feeding stuffs.
Cash taken in last year was £1,911 ; this year £2,049—an increase of only £138. Concentrates last year were 340 cwt. at 13 to 14 per cent. protein and this year 380 cwt. of the only sort they could afford—11 to 12 per cent. protein. The price last year was £40 and this year £61·20, making a total difference of £482 compared with the increase in milk of £137. For one month the difference for the 100-cow herd is £345. For six winter months it could be worse because there could be a demand for more

feeding stuffs and we do not know how the price will go. The difference is £2,070. I do not want to suggest that I shall not survive, because I have a large cereal acreage, but the Minister should think of the West Country farmers with half that herd and a £1,035 difference in six winter months' milk. To that must be added the extra cost referred to by my right hon. Friend—the 18 per cent. overdraft costs and so on. The Minister of Agriculture must take a second look at what the Government intend to do and not wait until February.

Mr. John E. B. Hill: Will the hon. Member and his hon. Friends support an increase in the retail price of milk of ½p per pint?

Mr. Mackie: Will the Minister support such an increase?

10.34 p.m.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): I very much welcome this debate. There cannot often be assembled so many Opposition Members who speak with such interest and genuine authority on the matter.
I wish that the sympathy they have expressed on behalf of the producer were more often expressed on Thursday afternoons, when the Opposition's major interest seems to be the prices being paid by consumers rather than the incomes being received by farmers. I may be wrong about that. Let me try to pacify the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes), who seems to have taken offence at what I have said, by saying that his heart has always been with farming. I quite understand his allusion to Mr. Wallace Day. It has been a sore subject with the right hon. Gentleman for a long time and he has my sympathy. The right hon. Gentleman has been guilty of no overstatement tonight.
When the right hon. Gentleman asked us to scrutinise the activities of the British Sugar Corporation with great care, he was venturing on to rather thin ice. I say that with great feeling, because the Scots and the Welsh never quarrel, other than at Cardiff Arms Park. I speak with particular feeling, because the right hon. Gentleman's party was in power when the corporation did something very hurtful to the country from which I come, and I cannot recollect that it did any great


scrutiny of what was going on in the corporation then.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: An entirely different subject.

Mr. Stodart: I am not so sure that it is. It affects the British Sugar Corporation, anyway.
The present food prices situation has arisen because of a temporary—I emphasise "temporary"—world shortage of proteins and cereals. Proteins are short very largely because of the failure of fishmeal production in Peru and restrictions on exports of soya from North America.
Restrictions on soya have now been lifted. Supplies have returned to more normal levels, and therefore, although it is always dangerous to prophesy, the worst of the protein shortage seems to be over. The price of soya has fallen from a peak of about £260 a ton in mid-July to about £100 a ton now, which is just about what it was a year ago.
The rise in grain prices is mainly due to the poor harvests in the Soviet Union and some other countries and heavy buying by Russia and China as a result. This led to substantial reductions in stocks.
The grain situation is still worrying, in spite of this year's good harvests throughout the Northern Hemisphere. There have been reports of record harvests in Russia and China, but prices have only dropped slightly from their highest levels, and fears that a shortage of oil may cause shipping difficulties have been causing prices to firm again within the last few days.
If grain prices come down over the coming months, they will clearly not fall enough in time to affect feeding stuffs significantly in the near future. There is no use pretending that they will.
These increases have inevitably caused difficulties for livestock farmers, but for many of them there have been compensating increases in returns from the market. I shall come in a moment to the most hard hit of all, the specialist dairy farmer.
But the situation of pig producers, who were in some difficulties in August, has substantially improved. What was, I hope, the first silver lining in these rather

dark clouds appeared last week, when one of our leading compounders announced decreases of £2–£3 a ton in the prices of its main pig and poultry feeding stuffs. That at least is a step in the right direction. Since mid-August the prices of fat pigs have increased on average by about 20 per cent. from £3·78 to £4·61. Pig producers' profits should now in most cases have returned to satisfactory levels.
The exceptions to the general picture are the dairy fanners. That I totally accept. Particularly concerned are the specialist dairy fanners who cannot make up in other directions the reductions in the margins on milk. Such farmers have not been able to benefit from increased returns from the market. I recognise fully the difficulties that the high feed costs have created for them.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman to put the problems into perspective. I have said, and I say it again, that the rise in feed costs is temporary. Farming in this country has had three good years. The Government have encouraged expansion. The weather has been kind. The political views of the Almighty cannot be in doubt. Farmers generally have responded by making major efforts to expand. I see that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me wholeheartedy.
Dairy farmers have shared in those developments. The figures of specimen net incomes collected for the Ministry by universities and published in the Annual Review White Papers give some indication of that. The figures show that the incomes of specialist dairy producers in the sample for England and Wales rose by 26 per cent. in 1970–71 over the previous year, and by a further 78 per cent. in 1971–72. I should be surprised if another increase not far removed from that of 1970–71 is not recorded for 1972–73. Over the three years, the experience of specialist dairy producers in other parts of the United Kingdom—for example, Scotland and Wales—is likely to have been much the same.
I agree that the rise in feed costs in the past four months has reduced dairy farmers' margins. It would be absurd to argue about that. However, the rise is not as large as is claimed by the right hon. Gentleman. I note that when the


right hon. Gentleman questioned my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister he said that the price of feed costs nearly doubled in the past three years. The right hon. Gentleman is a member of the legal profession and he will appreciate that we must be careful about what we mean by "nearly". The average price of all compounds in November, 1970 was £46 a ton. Today it is £78·50. That is a rise of 70 per cent. That is quite a distance from 100 per cent. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would wish me to get it right.
All the same, without the compensation of increased returns from the market, dairy farmers have been going through a difficult and unhappy time. However, it

is a temporary setback and future prospects are extremely good. The Community's present target price is 26·86p per gallon. That compares with an estimated pool price in the United Kingdom of 21·7p in 1973–74. By the end of the transitional period producers can expect to receive at least the common target price. That should lead to substantially higher profits. That is why—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.